Friday, February 16, 2007

The darartd of Norbanbar and Erebor ate gaybytc on Weduesday.

The horrendous monotony of my day has been broken by Junko-sensei`s tests. She is one of the only senseis that actually takes me up on my desperate offers to grade tests (and you know I must be desperate if grading sounds like fun). Actually, grading tests IS pretty fun, as long as it`s written answers that you can laugh at (as opposed to A, B, C). This is exactly what I got today. Not only was I lucky enough to get written answers, everyone was required to write a 6 line dialogue for the final. Subject: bumping into Joyce in the hallway.

First let me say that Japanese kids rock out the spelling of English words. Not rock in a the sense of getting it right, but rock in an `oh my, that is AWESOMELY wrong but oh so funny` sense. Here are a few of the variations I got on these tests for the following words:

CABBAGE: gaybytc, green bowl, green leaf, cabets, chabet, cavage
DAUGHTER: darartd, douter, dorter, dauter, doughter, dauther
ELBOW: erebor, elbor, adley, elbo, ellbo, aible
WEDNESDAY: wemd day, wenedbay, weduesday (mixed that up with Tuesday!), webnesday
NOVEMBER: norbanbar

Last but definitively not least, a good 50% of the students wrote POPAI for... you guessed it. SPINACH. Not a single student wrote `spinach`. Several wrote hourensou (Japanese), and the rest left it blank. Everyone who didnt do either of those two things wrote POPAI (pop-eye). Lovin` it, y`all.

Now to the dialogues with Joyce. I will give you a few, since I am bored and clearly so are you, if you are blog surfing.













STUDENT Hello Joyce
JOYCE (silence)
STUDENT I Love Joyce
JOYCE (silence)
STUDENT Good bye. Joyce.
JOYCE See you!

STUDENT Hi joyce.
JOYCE How are you?
STUDENT I farin tancs.
JOYCE Farin too.
STUDENT Wart go to cras room?
JOYCE Yes! Bey!

STUDENT Hi Joyce teacher.
JOYCE Hi how are you how was test?
STUDENT Im soso. test was very tiyerd.
JOYCE Oh! Good Job!
STUDENT I felt so difficult is math. Sad.
JOYCE I`m can`t math too :-(

STUDENT Hi Joyce!
JOYCE Hellow, are you going to now?
STUDENT I going to cras room.
JOYCE Oh reary!
STUDENT yes!
JOYCE see you.

STUDENT Hi Joyce techer, How are you?
JOYCE Hi. I fain and you?
STUDENT I`m butt!
JOYCE OH. are you ok? Why?!
STUDENT today is test.
JOYCE I see! dont mind! but are you study very hard to do, FIGHT!!!

STUDENT Hi ms. Joyce. How are you?
JOYCE I fain tank you.
STUDENT It give me chocoreet in Barenterin? Yes who is it?
JOYCE I give she chocoreet for you.

STUDENT Good morning joyce.
JOYCE Hi chihiro.
STUDENT I love Joyce, give chocreat.
JOYCE Realy?
STUDENT Happy velentain!

STUDENT Good morning Joyce.
JOYCE Hi good morning.
STUDENT How are you?
JOYCE I fine and you?
STUDENT I fine thankyou and you?
JOYCE Oh... please listen to my SAYING!
STUDENT I`m kidding I sorry!

4 comments:

Claire in Tuba-Town said...

Joyce, I know it's a little late, but will you be my barenterin? Please?!?!

Almost wet my pants reading this entry last night. Had to call Kristen and make her read it with me on the phone because it was just too much hilarity for one person to handle.

Thank you for all the joy!

jonvon said...

Yes, though i live here too and get to experience some funny 'english' renderings ;) I was laughing embarassingly in the teachers room while reading this entry.

Amy said...

At least your students can write! Today I was asking my students questions, and they were getting really confused. Questions like "What's your name?" and "How are you?" Apparently they needed sensei to translate for them.

Joyce Chapman, Consultant for Communications & Data Analysis said...

hmm, but Amy, you teach little people... aren't they like, ages 6-10? These kids are 16-18. They've had 6 years of English already!