Rovery Engrish Paaato 2!

*Lovely English Part 2*

Here are some amusing answers that I read on the students' homework they handed in. When I say I teach English here, you should really take it with a grain of salt. I'm not with them long enough to make a difference and the teachers themselves don't speak enough English to properly teach the kids either. As a result stuff like this happens.

I was doing a lesson on New Year's Resolutions and for the homework they had to talk about the best and worst things that happened to them in the previous year. I gave them a "hint" in class on how to answer correctly (basically how to start the sentence). I told them to write, "The best/worst thing that happened was when..." on their papers and they only had to finish the sentence making sure to write it in the past tense. They seemed to get it in class, but obviously they ignored me or didn't understand what to do. Here were some of the really good results (and a poignant example of why I want to stick a pen in my eye every day):

Best thing: "My love beared fruit and I was very happiness."
(They don't seem to be able to tell the difference between a noun and an adjective despite having both in Japanese)

Best thing: "I could see my love's face when leave junior high school's graduation ceremony."

Same student's worst thing: "I could not do a declaration of love to my love."

And this one is a hope for the New Year: "I hope to be a massive girl."
(Someone should fire the guy who did the translations for those damned electronic dictionaries!)

And here are some of the worst/most mangled ones I got:

Best thing: "beautiful the my room" (Uhhh... what the hell is THAT supposed to mean??? I couldn't even correct the English on this one. I just didn't know where to start!)

Best thing: "was when I heavied my body." (...*sigh*...what?)

Best thing: "was when I give to bargain." (*hitting my head against my desk*)

Worst thing: "was when broken foods." (I'll tell you what's broken, darlin'. Your head is broken! What in the world are you thinking??????)

And a hope for the New Year: "I hope to be King of eath." (I could only assume that "eath" meant "Earth". This kid is creative and cool and he was only missing the "r"! Congrats buddy!)

The sad part about all this is the fact that I've given up on teaching myself Japanese but still am able to pick up more day to day and can actually translate the majority of the important parts of my lesson. I go around to students and have to explain how to do the activity in broken Japanese -- but at least I'm trying AND they understand me! I only half-ass taught myself during the first year here and can speak more Japanese than they can of English despite having "learned" it for years!! They can't speak to save their lives! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!?!?!? GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

I suppose the positive side of this is that it's much more amusing to correct homework when they butcher my language to such an extent. If their English was perfect, then it'd just be boring!


Edit: I just looked up and realized that the teacher sitting across from me had a folded towel on her head..... why does she have a towel on her head???? She's acting perfectly normal and no one else seems to be disturbed by this.

Wait, she just took it off. Was it just for temporary storage? I guess that makes sense. I mean why put it on your lap when you could just as easily put it on your head.... where the hell am I? Africa? *panicky feeling starting in my belly* What's going on????