E-C translation of an e-mail to a bookstore; please help!

[MaPLe]

Hi folks,

Last week I ordered two books from an on-line Taiwanese bookstore and one of them turned out to be out of stock. I'll refer to this book as Book 1 from now on. The other book is in stock, but it's out of print and only seven copies are left and selling fast. I'll refer to this one as Book 2 hereafter.

Alright, so this bookstore is holding my order until Book 1 is back in stock, because they don't ship partial orders. I don't mind waiting. But the problem is that I don't know if they actually reserved a copy of Book 2 when I placed my order, which could have nasty consequences if they didn't: By the time Book 1 is back in stock, Book 2 may have been sold out and I may never be able to get it again because it's out of print.

So what I want to ask them is whether they are holding an actual physical copy of Book 2 for me until Book 1 is back in stock, so that no one else can steal it away from me in the meantime. I have tried communicating with them in English, but they don't understand my questions and write back in Chinese. Could you guys please help me out and word my question in Chinese? (I've pasted my message in English to them below, but you can of course omit the dumbed down and repetitive parts I wrote to get them to understand.) Even though the bookstore is in Taiwan, I'll gladly accept translations in simplified Chinese--I can "traditionalize" them with Wenlin, so that's no problem.

I'm really frustrated and desperate because I cannot get them to understand and the books are selling while I wait, so I'll be extremely thankful if anyone can put together a small paragraph that correctly asks my question. Thanks!

---

Hello,

I think you did not understand my second question. I did not mean to ask whether you could ship [book 2] now and [book 1] later. What I really want to ask is whether you reserved a copy of [book 2] for me when I placed my order. In other words, are you holding a copy of [book 2] for me so that even if all the remaining stock is sold out you will still have a copy to send me as soon as [book 1] is back in stock? Let me reword that once more. [book 1] is currently out of stock, and [book 2] is in stock. However, [book 2] is out of print and very few copies are left. Could it happen that, by the time [book 1] is back in stock, [book 2] will have been sold out and you will no longer have a copy to send me? I would be extremely frustrated if that happened, so I would really appreciate it if you reserved a copy of [book 2] for me.

I do not mind if I have to wait, but I want to get both books. I want to be 100% sure that, if I wait, I will eventually get the two books.

Please let me know as soon as possible.

Thanks in advance,

Nick

[geek_frappa]

show me the money.

[MaPLe]

Thanks, but I just got everything sorted out. This thread can now be deleted or locked.

[ChineseHeel]

Let me try this. There could be a more concise interpretation, but I just want to make sure the reader will know exactly what you mean.

Hello,

你好！

I think you did not understand my second question. 我觉得您误解了我的意思。 I did not mean to ask whether you could ship [book 2] now and [book 1] later. 我并不是想问你什么时候能运出 What I really want to ask is whether you reserved a copy of [book 2] for me when I placed my order. In other words, are you holding a copy of [book 2] for me so that even if all the remaining stock is sold out you will still have a copy to send me as soon as [book 1] is back in stock? 我真正想问的是您是否保留了一本book 2, 这样在book 1重新有售的时候您能确保把book 1和book 2一同给我寄过来。我真正担心的是如果您不给我保留一本book 2，等到book 1有的时候book 2已经卖完了。如果那种情形发生的话，我真的会非常沮丧。所以我真的希望您在等候book 1的同时能够为我保留一本book 2，这样可以确保我最终能顺利拿到我想要的两本书。只要能顺利拿到这两本书，我并不在乎要等多久。Let me reword that once more. [book 1] is currently out of stock, and [book 2] is in stock. However, [book 2] is out of print and very few copies are left. Could it happen that, by the time [book 1] is back in stock, [book 2] will have been sold out and you will no longer have a copy to send me? I would be extremely frustrated if that happened, so I would really appreciate it if you reserved a copy of [book 2] for me.

I do not mind if I have to wait, but I want to get both books. I want to be 100% sure that, if I wait, I will eventually get the two books.

Please let me know as soon as possible.

请您能否尽快告知我您理解了我的意思，非常感谢！

Thanks in advance,

Nick

[MaPLe]

Wow, thank you so much! I wish I could write like that. Even though I had already gotten this particular issue sorted out as I said in my last post, I'll keep your translation, as it may be very useful in the future if that ever happens again (which is more than likely).

By the way, that was a question I was meaning to send to kingstone.com.tw, whose customer service sucks. If you ever order any books from Taiwan, I highly recommend books.com.tw instead. Kingstone is okay when the stuff you need is in stock and when you don't have any questions to ask. However, when something goes out of stock it usually takes them a long time to restock it (they made me wait a week for a bestseller), their customer service people sometimes take like two business days to answer an e-mail and don't work on weekends (books.com.tw's customer service works on weekends and replies to e-mail in a matter of minutes or a few hours), their order processing and shipping employees are faster than their customer service and it's thus almost impossible to get an order canceled in time, etc. They also include misleading or wrong information in some of their product descriptions. And on their site they claim to be better than Amazon with "Our customer service can communicate in both Chinese and English!" being one of the reasons; yet, when I wrote them in English, they didn't even understand my questions and wrote back in Chinese. (Hence why I needed the translation.)

Anyway, I may need to ask this question to books.com.tw or other bookstores in the near future, so please don't think that you've translated it in vain--I'm sure I'll use it soon.

再次謝謝你!