Spoken Engrish
Posted on March 3, 2005
I had an impromptu one on one class with Mr. cat piss today. His spoken grammar is not a lot better than his written grammar (insane) so it was pretty interesting. The subject was superstitions, and the book had several American old wives’ tales. At the end I was to prompt them for Japanese old wives tales. After a verbal struggle we figured out that if you cut your nails at night, you won’t be there when your parents die. A little odd, but it was confirmed by the other Japanese staff after class. Since he was the only person in the class I had to kind of artificially lengthen the activities, so I asked him for another. It started off just the way every story should:
“This is…a dirty story.”
What follows is basically what he said, but I don’t record the classes or anything so its just what my brain can attempt to piece together.
“When we are in childrenhood we sometimes take a pish to some small animals. Like beetle or something. When we do that, our parents say your…*wild hand gesture* very important part becomes sick”
Wow. Also it should be noted that he is very fond of the word “piss” apparently, but when he pronounces it it comes out as “pish.” Just another reason he is the greatest student ever. Even more than that, he’s moving up to the next textbook in April. Joy.
eb
On March 6, 2005 at 22:31
childrenhood!