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Showing posts with label language mistakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language mistakes. Show all posts

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Food Poisoning by Special Students

Food Poisoning by Special Students 

Anko and Unko
Similar words very different meanings.

I used to love my special needs students. At first, the main English teacher would go to class himself. Then, he introduced us and said we could team teach with him. That seemed good. At that time there were three special need students. They seemed to lack emotion sometimes but on the opposite end of the scale were very extreme other days. Very angry or upset. And I wasn't sure what their level of communication was in general, let alone their English when I first went to the classes.
Instead of team teaching it became alone teaching, as in just me. It would have been OK if there was someone there to discipline them, but I'm a little soft and I didn't want to upset them (in their fragile state).
One girl liked to scratch her nails on the board. I asked her to stop in English. Other-times while teaching them something, she would repeat “Moshi moshi” five thousand times. It means “Hello” on the telephone, but can also be used to get someone's attention. She was relentless with it, so I started to go insane (the joke was on them, I already had!).
Another mistake I made with her was to give her my telephone number. She said she wanted to text me. I was under the impression she meant once in a while,  not every ten minutes. When I didn't respond she would send hate texts about how I was ignoring her and being rude. I informed her I was asleep as it was night-time and she shouldn't be using her phone so late.
Eventually I gave up and told her teacher I needed her to delete my number and inform her not to scratch her nails on the board as I was living in a horror film being around her (I think the RING). 
That was true, it was a horror film life.
One boy, I wasn't too sure what his situation was. He hung out with the bad kids and swore a lot in Japanese. I think he liked me but it was hard to tell (he didn't hit me or scratch his nails, so bonus there). One time during my farewell party with all of them, the special needs teacher mentioned they had made lunch for me. Lucky me I thought!
I was excited, until I saw the bad kid pick his nose, then scratch his bum and put his hands back into the rice. I was a bit horrified. I contemplated how I could come up with an excuse to get out, since I was already there.
He kept repeating he had put “unko” into the rice balls. If you didn’t know unko means excrement or crap in English. I hoped that it was just a special needs joke, or he was mispronouncing.
It sounds a lot like “anko” which is sweet bean and fairly common in rice balls.
Well it might look like "unko" aka crap, but this one is "anko" red bean.
The taste shouldn't be similar, at least in theory.

I really hoped he had not put “unko” into the rice balls. As I went to put my first bite into the balls he had an evil grin on his face, “Enjoy the “unko”!”, he said. It seemed he had added a lot salt and seaweed as well, which is weird if its sweet bean. I'm no cook like Jamie Oliver, but those don't go together. If it was indeed crap then he had covered up the flavour quite well with the salt and seaweed. No matter what it was inside I had a feeling I was about to get a sore stomach and severe diarrhea. What else is new!
I thanked them for the lunch (and was thinking where can I throw up?). They asked if I wanted to take any home. I said I was full and that I would be out at farewell parties so would have no chance to eat it.
As I left, I thought I overheard the bad boy say “Oh I gave him the wrong one, who ate the unko one?”. I hoped it was himself that ate it!


I'll try cleaning it after I die. My corporation will deal with my death.


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Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel 
(makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Friday, September 14, 2012

Obama's Erection Very Big!

Obama’s election as its so called. Or as the Japanese like to call it something a bit different.


In this case I got you covered Obama. I don't know for sure but I will take the Japanese peoples word for it. No need for inspection.

As you know that statistically if everyone in a class makes the same mistake it cannot be duplicated unless they are copying each other or don't know the answer. Probably, if you ran the test a hundred times in Canada there is no way the results would ever be the same, but in Japan, alas, its possible to always be the same. The joy of Japanese language (katakana and gairaigo) poisoning English. Katakana is an alphabet to Japanize foreign load words and gairaigo is words in Japanese taken from other languages. If you have any Japanese friends you are well aware of this fact. If you have ever seen a T-shirt that makes no sense, there is a good chance it was made in Japan.
Watch out for the bacteria pot monsters, they might get you with their delicacies. 

I wasn't sure which if people were copying or no one knew the answers when I marked my students tests. I noticed that they were the same repeat mistakes and tended to be with words that had a pronunciation in Japanese and had been “Japanized”. I couldn't understand how every student could write suriipee (Sue-Re-Pee) for sleepy or mirk (Merk) for milk. I knew already everyone said the word the same way and that it was wrong, no matter how many times I taught it. It was like taking blood from a stone to get them to change it, aka Mission Impossible. 
There were always mistakes with L’s and R’s. In Japanese L's sound somewhere inbetween but closer to R. There are no L’s in the Japanese language. Most people replaced any English word that has an L with an R which causes endless mistakes. Check out the website at the end to see some examples, hilarious. Since this topic is occurring again in the news right now let me tell you a topic you should never discuss with Japanese people, “Elections”. You see as everyone in United States is watching Obama’s election, the Japanese are watching Obama’s erection. “Big!!  Very very big, I like (rike) to watch”, my friends would repeat.“Everyone likes (rikes) Obama, big big erection!”. I didn't know if I should correct them. I would giggle. More than one friend “Do you like (raike) Obama’s erection?”. Um, uhhhh, uhhh, how should I answer.“I'm not American, so I don’t really care who it is as long as its not Bush, he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed", I answered.“But what about Obama erection? Isn't it nice? Its very big in America”. Again I didn't know how to answer or how should I clarify I didn't know the results of their actual question. I finally gave in to the trap “Yes, Obama’s election is big”. Their response “So Myles likes (rikes) Obama’s erection?”. “Yes”, I answered with my head down.



Hey this one applies to Obama. Don't play games with a hard on.  Or leave a dog in the ark. 

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future.



Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel 
(makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva



If you have never heard of this, check it out. Engrish .com. Lots of examples of the power of incorrect English. Highly entertaining.
http://engrish.com/

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