Thursday, September 14, 2006

One of the joys of teaching a second language is the amusement that can be found in the students’ Engrish. I know I make a mess of the Japanese language, my students certainly come up with some real gems of their own.

"I would be healthier if I excavated regular stools." A homework answer to
the question of how to be healthier.

"My front hair line is in big trouble." A student talking about his receding hairline.

"You can drink the water that comes out of the cock." A student's explanation of a sign that indicated that the tap was for drinking water.

Question asked of a student, "Have you ever had a bad day?" Reply,
"Yes, I have. I've been bound hand and foot several times." Mmm a little
too much information there.....

"He... goes home, goes to bed and sleeps around." The correct answer should have been he "sleeps late".

"....I'm impotent..." the intended meaning was "helpless". A reason why not to always trust your dictionary.

"Today, I went to the massage parlour". I had fun explaining this one. Luckily, I knew the phrase in Japanese for a brothel, "soap-land". The girl though, had simply gone for a massage.

"The cherry blossoms are hyaku (100) percent open."
This was a creative attempt at telling me the Cherry Blossoms were in full
bloom.

"I really want have deep sleep in someones softry brest."
Again, maybe a little too much information....

“My mother…… my mother…. my mother…. my mother….. cook….. eat me.” polished off with a broad smile happy that he could answer the test question successfully. The question? “What club do you belong to?”.

1 comment:

Selvinas said...

Always funny reading engrish xD But from what age do the Japanese get taught English? Because to me, it sometimes seem too bad to be true...
But then again, when I went on exchange to the Czech Republic I found out that they get taught from age 4/5 and by the time they leave school it's still horrible!