More about that

Wow. I was bombarded with emails about how funny you all thought my kids' test answers were. I guess I've gotten so used to it. I barely even realize the hilarity of Engrish. You know, it's not just tests that bring out funny English. My Every Day functions on a level only marginally above what was exposed in my last post, with most people. I even find myself modifying my speech in the hopes that I will be better understood. No more contractions. Nope. No more articles in places where its clear you don't need them (seriously, who needs articles at ALL anymore? They`re so 90s). These days I'm full of enthusiastic statements like,

`EHHHH?! You will go Tokyo for kurisumasu holiday?! Sugoi!`

An even worse example: I now consistently use then instead of so, in a sentence like,

`My kids have no school today, then, I take holiday leave.`

Japanese people really like to do that. I don't know why. But what they like... Joy-su likes. Except that this is really pronounced (by both myself and others) as den, since Japanese people have trouble with the interdental fricatives. No shame there, those things are tough!

I also have to teach funny English lessons sometimes. If the teacher doesn't ask me to edit their handout, I'm stuck agreeing with their Engrish. The hardest part is reading it out loud to the kids. You really have to concentrate hard to read what they've written and not say it correctly. Look, this is the lesson I taught today (kids got this on their handout too):

Screen de Lesson

Let`s learn English expressions while watching one Sheen of movie `Anastasia` and understand contents of the stories

10 years ago royalty family get separated because of the festivity of Rasputin. Anastasia is too young and does not have any memories of her past is brought up in an orphan home as Anya.This is scene where Anastasia is going to Paris for a trip of search for hereself. But The empress bets the prize money on looking for Anastasia and Anastasia meets with Domitri and Vladimir who aim at the prize money. But She has to get Visa to go to paris and meet with them

Let`s watch the Sheen!
- Expalin a meaning of each word.
- Practice pronaunciation.,

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!