A Company Is Looking For An Emoji Translator & You Are 100% Qualified

We have arrived in the future and it is extremely weird.
It might seem like we already had emojis when we were sending each other tongue-pokey-outy faces on MSN Messenger, but you’d be a fool to think that, emojis and emoticons are actually extremely different – for a bunch of reasons that aren’t immediately springing to mind.
Regardless of what they are, people sure use them a lot. Why tell someone you’re keen to bone with words when you can just send them a small cartoon picture of a Lebanese eggplant and some water droplets? They’re so ubiquitous, it turns out, that translation companies are looking to bring people aboard to translate these modern day pictograms.
Today Translations in London chucked up an ad two weeks ago asking for someone to specialise in the various nuances and cultural differences surrounding emojis, because that’s the world we live in now.
From the ad:
“As the UK’s top translation firm, we stay constantly abreast of the latest language trends, in the service of ever-changing client needs – but feel that the accelerating pace of change in this burgeoning area now demands a specialist focus.

“Emoji translation is itself an emerging field – but one dominated to date by software, which is often insensitive to the many cultural differences in usage and interpretation. We are therefore seeking an exceptional individual to provide the human touch needed where translation software is inadequate – and to help us become the go-to translation experts in this area.

“In the absence of any native speakers, the successful candidate should be able to demonstrate a passion for emojis, combined with cutting-edge knowledge and awareness of areas of confusion and cultural/international differences. A practical test of emoji knowledge/skills may be given.”
I imagine the practical test is just asking whether it’s OK to send the peach emoji to your nan (it isn’t).
The difficulty in the job lies in knowing what means what in what cultures – for instance, the crying with laughter emoji tends to be parsed as grief or anguish in Middle Eastern cultures.
Jurga Zilinskiene, the CEO, reckons emojis are going to get even bigger:
“We are investing time and energy into this is because we believe emoji usage will become more and more popular.”
The location is listed as “flexible”, so if you believe you could be the person for the job, you can check out the listing here.
Source: CNN.

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