Adorable people who make shit

Funny English-related things:

My students’ English abilities vary widely, with some of them barely understanding a word of instructions and others reading Shakespeare (with a little help, since when’s the last time one of you could read Shakespeare and understand everything?). But I realized that even the most “clever” of classes (I HATE how the German teachers always use “clever” when they mean “smart” or “high-achieving”) don’t quite get the nuances of English. My favorite lesson so far is when I gave one class 10 articles from the Onion and asked them to read them and tell me if anything seemed strange. One article was about the Treasury Department desperately needing ones and fives. Another was about children getting all their vitamins from McDonald’s hamburgers. There was one about a Barnes and Noble in Cambodia that was really popular—people were using the bathrooms to sponge-bathe and the books to build shelter. Another was about JFK being shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, LBJ, Malcolm X, and like ten other people at about 158 different angles. My absolute favorite was about the Berlin Wall being torn down as a part of a Doritos-sponsored Super Bowl halftime show. You would think that the students (from Berlin!) would figure out this was a hoax. You would think! The only ones who caught on were the girls who had the JFK story. They all just assumed that whatever’s in a newspaper must be true. It was funny to see their embarrassment when I explained the stories to them.

A few funny instances. One student kept repeatedly telling me I was adorable. After awkward thanks on my part, I finally asked him what exactly he meant, and when he told me “nice” and I told him what “adorable” generally means, he blushed deeply. This is my teacher’s pet sorta student—he has never missed any of my after-school sessions and he constantly expresses his gratitude for the chance to speak with a real American. And then he gets so excited that he forgets what he’s saying. But he watches so many movies that he knows all these sophisticated words that none of the other students has picked up on. Problem is, he uses them in all the wrong places. Cf. “adorable” above.

Another of my students was telling me how her mom is a lawyer, and when I asked what kind, she said that she works with “the people who made shit.” I found that hilarious, but apparently there is a German phrase “Scheisse bauen,” which means to cause trouble. I took that to mean she is a defense attorney. We both had a good laugh over this one. (Speaking of “Scheisse,” it really does not have the strength that “shit” in English has, and thus teachers and students constantly say “shit” where I would have used “crap” or “poop.”)

I am glad that the students at my school seem to be genuinely happy that I am there, always greeting me (more like shouting across the hall) and asking me how I’m doing. The funny thing is they freak out when I ask them something in return (How are you?). They don’t expect that and then just stare at me until I say “you’re doing well?” One student was being particularly helpful while I was looking for a class last week and his friend told me, “I just want to say that he is single.” Thanks for the head’s up, next time I find a 16-year-old German girl looking for a boyfriend, I will let her know that there is a single boy roaming the halls (he’s never in class!). Anyway, it’s cool to walk into a classroom and get shout-outs. Some of my students also think that my name is “Meggy,” which I have always hated, but for some reason it’s not so bad coming from them. Also, standing in front of a classroom, you realize how obvious that whole “if I don’t look at the teacher she won’t call on me” shtick is. I have to admit that sometimes I am evil and call on the one who looks the most scared.

Another thing. I catch the teachers at my school making mistakes in English all the time. Sometimes it takes everything in my power not to correct a teacher, because when I do, the students go “oooooh” and then discredit the teacher’s English ability. Several students have tried to get me to tell them that their teacher’s English is not that good, but they really are fluent. Anyway, the mistakes are not that egregious, and they generally have to do with pronunciation (because English is whack in that respect!). For example, I have heard several people pronounce “accompany” as if it ended with the sound “eye.” And a fun game—try to get a German to say “twentieth.” I think it’s an impossible feat. But one thing I have noticed is that no matter the time of the day, the teachers address the students with “Good morning,” and thus whenever I see a student, he tells me the same.

One thing I love about hearing Germans make mistakes when they speak English is that it gives me insight into German. When they make a mistake, it’s usually because they say it that way in German. My tandem partner has also found this to be the case with my mistakes in German.

Being so entrenched in German, I actually have difficulty speaking English sometimes. It usually has to do with vocabulary—I have either completely forgotten the English word, or the German word is so much more efficient that I use it instead. I wish I could think of examples . . . Also, when my students ask me to translate a word from German into English, I realize just how much more efficient German is. The vocabulary is just so darn precise—you know exactly what a word means by its parts. English, not so much. I then translate it literally—for example, “rolling/moving stairs” for “Rolltreppe”—and then can’t figure out what the heck the real English word is (in this case, “escalator”). I suppose “escalator” is also somewhat literal, but I would argue that “Rolltreppe” is even more so.

Also, a question for you all: What do you take “run amok” to mean? In German, “Amok laufen” is to go on a shooting rampage, like at a school or a mall. I was convinced that “to run amok” in English really just means to cause trouble, but my teacher insists that it indicates an extreme amount of violence. What is your take? This is one of those cases where I have to remind them that I am just one person, and my knowledge of English is just that, mine, not an authoritative look at the language. This goes especially with pronunciation, vowels in particular. I’ve got the whole California collapse of vowels thing going on.

Alright, that was a little look at my “Engrish”-like experiences. I have been in some really funny situations, and I can’t seem to remember many of them, but I will try to do a better job of writing them down in the future. I also need to talk about what I actually do as an English teacher. I’ve also got a post about my classes at Humboldt in mind. Stay tuned!