> haven't you ever read a Japaneses appliance manual ?
The manuals are fine. The problem was that the companies got incompetent translators to put them into English -- probably a company employee who claimed to know a little English.
Eventually they realized that they needed to hire professional translators, and these days I don't think you'll find many badly translated ones.
Chinese manuals, on the other hand, ... Apparently some Chinese companies haven't yet gotten the word.
In the case of N. Korea, it's probably a mixture of incompetent translation and the very inadequate grasp the folks writing the original stuff have of what plays in the outside world. What they really need to do is hire a good ad agency in an English-speaking country.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax