Being both a language learner and teacher, I am accustomed to mispronunciations and interesting uses of common words. I have committed quite a few of these linguistic mishaps myself, but this one takes the cake.
On Tuesday, I was talking to one of my students before class about Hurricane Sandy. Because the class had yet to start, we were talking in Spanish because it was more comfortable for her. Earlier that morning, I had read an article about a heavy snowfall in West Virgina and thought it would be interesting to tell her about that. Unfortunately for me, what came out of my mouth had nothing to do with a snowfall, resulting in an incredibly interesting mental picture for the both of us. The conversation went a little like this:
Me: "Y también han caído unas neveras tremendas."
Student: "Nevadas."
Me: "Sí, eso es lo que quería decir."
Student: "¿Sabes qué son neveras, verdad?"
Me: "Sí, pero como son palabras tan paracidas, me he confundido."
(Translation)
Me: "And some tremendous refrigerators have fallen."
Student: "Snowfalls."
Me: "That is what I wanted to say."
Student: "You know what refrigerators are, right?"
Me: "I do, but because the words are so similar that I got them confused."
The two of us had a really good laugh at my expense. It shows that everyone is susceptible to linguistic mishaps and that it's okay to make mistakes.
Word of the Day
English: refridgerator / Spanish: nevera
English: snowfall / Spanish: nevada
Friday, November 2, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
When Waves Attack
Yesterday was a perfect day of blue skies and warm temperatures, so I decided to take a trip to the beach. I decided not to go to my local beach (an hour away by train) and double my travel time to go to San Sebastian, where I knew the water would be perfect for swimming. When I got there I went first to a beach I had never been to, Zurriola, to see what it was like. It was pretty but not ideal for swimming as there were decent-sized waves and a lot of surfers. Since I didn't feel like dealing with either one of those things, I went to the more well-known beach, La Concha. Although it was mid-day and many people had left the beach to eat lunch, it was still relatively crowed. I stood on the boardwalk above the beach for several minutes looking for the perfect place of sand on which to lay my towel. I was looking for a place relatively close to the water and and in line with one of the many floating platforms in bay so I would have the shortest distance to swim should I choose to swim to the center of the bay.
When I finally located my ideal location, I set my towel down and headed to the water, determined to swim to the floating platform. I am a fairly decent swimmer, but the majority of my swimming experience has come from the pool, not the sea. This combined with the fact that I hadn't done any swimming of any kind for at least several years made me rethink my decision and stay in the shallower water where I could, for the most part, keep my feet on the ground. Had I been with someone else, I may have swum out there, but as I was alone, I didn't want to have any problems and not be able to get back. I was happily content to play around in the water just deeper than where the majority of the waves were breaking. I liked that place because I could still touch the bottom, but deep enough that I could float freely and didn't have to worry about being smacked upside the head by the breaking waves . Or so I thought.
The tide was coming in and there was a strong current in the shallow water. I learned as a small child never to turn my back to the ocean, so I turned sideways in the water so I could see both the shore and the bay. Although, because of the current, I could usually feel before I could see that a larger wave was headed towards the shore. When I could tell that it was a big wave, I would prepare myself by to be ready to jump and let the wave carry me a short distance towards the shore so I wouldn't get pushed under.
When I looked towards the shore, I noticed there was a girl about my age that seemed to be watching me. She eventually ventured into the deeper water and said hello. I responded and she was pleasantly surprised to find that I spoke English. We got to talking and I found out that she and her friend were on vacation from the States. I asked where she was from and she told me she was from Seattle as well. What a coincidence! She also told me that she was watching me because it seemed like I knew what I was doing with respect to not being pushed under by the waves. As soon as she said this, I could feel the current pulling me towards the bay and turned to see one of the largest waves I had seen all day heading our way. "What do I do?" she asked me. "Just jump and let it take you," I replied, having previously tried this strategy successfully and knowing that we neither had time to get closer to shore nor into deeper water to avoid the hit.
I jumped at what I thought was the right moment. Either the wave didn't break where I expected it to, or I mistimed my jump, or both, because the next thing I knew I was hit and pushed under by the wall of water. My face smashed hard into the sand and my only thought was to stand up as quickly as possible. I stood up with pain in my nose, mouth and chin, only to hear my new acquaintance say, "Here comes another one!" I turned and saw another wave coming at me. Though it wasn't as tall as the previous one, it had enough force to knock me down to my knees. When I stood up again, I said I was done and headed back to my towel to survey the damage. I had no idea what my face looked like, nor was I conscious of the fact that I was completely covered in sand; I just laid down on my towel and began to blow immense quantities of sand from my nose. I must have looked like a complete mess because the woman on the next towel over kept looking at me strangely. Since there was no blood as far as I could tell, I laid there for probably about 20 minutes trying to use the sun try to dry off a little and decide whether I should go try and find an ice pack. As the tide was still rising and the high tide line was fewer than 10 feet away, I decided to pack up my things and leave.
I left and wandered about the city for an hour, killing time until the next train. It wasn't until I got to the train station that I saw the damage. I had a dime-sized red lump on my chin and a slight red circle around my mouth and nose as well as marks where I had bitten the inside of my lip, not to mention the copious amounts of sand in my ears and hair. I am sure I brought about half of the beach home with me in just my hair. When I got home I tried to explain to my roommate what had happened and she kind of laughed at me. It wasn't until later, when she noticed the bump on my chin that she gave me the you-really-are-a-dumb-American look and proceeded to tell my adventure to her friend. We all had a good laugh at the expense of the dumb American.
Word of the Day:
English - wave
Spanish - ola
Basque - olatu
When I finally located my ideal location, I set my towel down and headed to the water, determined to swim to the floating platform. I am a fairly decent swimmer, but the majority of my swimming experience has come from the pool, not the sea. This combined with the fact that I hadn't done any swimming of any kind for at least several years made me rethink my decision and stay in the shallower water where I could, for the most part, keep my feet on the ground. Had I been with someone else, I may have swum out there, but as I was alone, I didn't want to have any problems and not be able to get back. I was happily content to play around in the water just deeper than where the majority of the waves were breaking. I liked that place because I could still touch the bottom, but deep enough that I could float freely and didn't have to worry about being smacked upside the head by the breaking waves . Or so I thought.
The tide was coming in and there was a strong current in the shallow water. I learned as a small child never to turn my back to the ocean, so I turned sideways in the water so I could see both the shore and the bay. Although, because of the current, I could usually feel before I could see that a larger wave was headed towards the shore. When I could tell that it was a big wave, I would prepare myself by to be ready to jump and let the wave carry me a short distance towards the shore so I wouldn't get pushed under.
When I looked towards the shore, I noticed there was a girl about my age that seemed to be watching me. She eventually ventured into the deeper water and said hello. I responded and she was pleasantly surprised to find that I spoke English. We got to talking and I found out that she and her friend were on vacation from the States. I asked where she was from and she told me she was from Seattle as well. What a coincidence! She also told me that she was watching me because it seemed like I knew what I was doing with respect to not being pushed under by the waves. As soon as she said this, I could feel the current pulling me towards the bay and turned to see one of the largest waves I had seen all day heading our way. "What do I do?" she asked me. "Just jump and let it take you," I replied, having previously tried this strategy successfully and knowing that we neither had time to get closer to shore nor into deeper water to avoid the hit.
I jumped at what I thought was the right moment. Either the wave didn't break where I expected it to, or I mistimed my jump, or both, because the next thing I knew I was hit and pushed under by the wall of water. My face smashed hard into the sand and my only thought was to stand up as quickly as possible. I stood up with pain in my nose, mouth and chin, only to hear my new acquaintance say, "Here comes another one!" I turned and saw another wave coming at me. Though it wasn't as tall as the previous one, it had enough force to knock me down to my knees. When I stood up again, I said I was done and headed back to my towel to survey the damage. I had no idea what my face looked like, nor was I conscious of the fact that I was completely covered in sand; I just laid down on my towel and began to blow immense quantities of sand from my nose. I must have looked like a complete mess because the woman on the next towel over kept looking at me strangely. Since there was no blood as far as I could tell, I laid there for probably about 20 minutes trying to use the sun try to dry off a little and decide whether I should go try and find an ice pack. As the tide was still rising and the high tide line was fewer than 10 feet away, I decided to pack up my things and leave.
I left and wandered about the city for an hour, killing time until the next train. It wasn't until I got to the train station that I saw the damage. I had a dime-sized red lump on my chin and a slight red circle around my mouth and nose as well as marks where I had bitten the inside of my lip, not to mention the copious amounts of sand in my ears and hair. I am sure I brought about half of the beach home with me in just my hair. When I got home I tried to explain to my roommate what had happened and she kind of laughed at me. It wasn't until later, when she noticed the bump on my chin that she gave me the you-really-are-a-dumb-American look and proceeded to tell my adventure to her friend. We all had a good laugh at the expense of the dumb American.
Word of the Day:
English - wave
Spanish - ola
Basque - olatu
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Who is Mr. Bean?
Now that the beginning of the school year is upon us again, I am going to share a few of my stories and observations from the previous course.
If you have ever spent any length of time learning English in a classroom setting, you most likely are familiar with Mr. Bean. However, if you are like me in that you have spent the majority of your life in the United States, you probably have no idea who I'm talking about. The truth is, despite the fact that Mr. Bean is extremely well know in the world of second language teaching, I did not know who he was until a couple of months ago. In case you, like I was, are unaware of who Mr. Bean is, he is a character played by Rowan Atkinson that stars in a series of short, nearly wordless episodes that are extremely useful in language teaching.
Several months ago some of my students, not terribly excited about what we had to do in class, asked if I would put on a film for them. When I refused, they began to beg. When I continued to refuse, one of the students suggested that we watch Mr. Bean, as it was something they had watched with other teachers in previous classes. I stuck to my guns and continued to refuse to let them watch a film. "Besides," I told them, "I don't know who Mr. Bean is." The entire class fell silent, as if they were in a state of shock, until one girl said something to the effect of "How can you not know who Mr. Bean is? You speak English!" I then tried to explain that in the U.S. Mr. Bean wasn't as common as in England. They still couldn't believe that I had never heard of him before. The argument to watch an episode of Mr. Bean changed from "We want to watch it" to "You have to watch this to know who he is, and what better place to watch it than with us". I told them I would look into it when I got home later that afternoon. I was rather busy at the time and I forgot spend the few minutes looking him up on the internet. In fact, I didn't expect to ever think of Mr. Bean again. That all changed when I went to Basque class a couple of months later.
That day in class, we were informed that we were going to watch an episode of Mr. Bean and then, later, recount the story. "You all know who Mr. Bean is, right," the teacher asked us. "Ez dakit nor den," I replied. "I don't know who that is." Once again I had an entire class stare at me in disbelief that I didn't know who he was. The class couldn't believe it and the teacher gave a "really, you're an English speaker who teaches conversation classes and still don't know who he is" look. "But you're American, you have to know who he is," said one of the other students. "That's precisely why I don't have any clue as to who you're talking about," I wanted to say. You see, I was at a great disadvantage as I hadn't had any exposure to Mr. Bean. For starters, I'm American, I have never studied English as a foreign language in a classroom, and I was the youngest person in the class. We watched the video and the teacher asked, which was in English with Chinese subtitles, and afterwards, the teacher asked if I knew who he was. I replied, "I do now." So much for being an authority on all things English-related.
If you have ever spent any length of time learning English in a classroom setting, you most likely are familiar with Mr. Bean. However, if you are like me in that you have spent the majority of your life in the United States, you probably have no idea who I'm talking about. The truth is, despite the fact that Mr. Bean is extremely well know in the world of second language teaching, I did not know who he was until a couple of months ago. In case you, like I was, are unaware of who Mr. Bean is, he is a character played by Rowan Atkinson that stars in a series of short, nearly wordless episodes that are extremely useful in language teaching.
Several months ago some of my students, not terribly excited about what we had to do in class, asked if I would put on a film for them. When I refused, they began to beg. When I continued to refuse, one of the students suggested that we watch Mr. Bean, as it was something they had watched with other teachers in previous classes. I stuck to my guns and continued to refuse to let them watch a film. "Besides," I told them, "I don't know who Mr. Bean is." The entire class fell silent, as if they were in a state of shock, until one girl said something to the effect of "How can you not know who Mr. Bean is? You speak English!" I then tried to explain that in the U.S. Mr. Bean wasn't as common as in England. They still couldn't believe that I had never heard of him before. The argument to watch an episode of Mr. Bean changed from "We want to watch it" to "You have to watch this to know who he is, and what better place to watch it than with us". I told them I would look into it when I got home later that afternoon. I was rather busy at the time and I forgot spend the few minutes looking him up on the internet. In fact, I didn't expect to ever think of Mr. Bean again. That all changed when I went to Basque class a couple of months later.
That day in class, we were informed that we were going to watch an episode of Mr. Bean and then, later, recount the story. "You all know who Mr. Bean is, right," the teacher asked us. "Ez dakit nor den," I replied. "I don't know who that is." Once again I had an entire class stare at me in disbelief that I didn't know who he was. The class couldn't believe it and the teacher gave a "really, you're an English speaker who teaches conversation classes and still don't know who he is" look. "But you're American, you have to know who he is," said one of the other students. "That's precisely why I don't have any clue as to who you're talking about," I wanted to say. You see, I was at a great disadvantage as I hadn't had any exposure to Mr. Bean. For starters, I'm American, I have never studied English as a foreign language in a classroom, and I was the youngest person in the class. We watched the video and the teacher asked, which was in English with Chinese subtitles, and afterwards, the teacher asked if I knew who he was. I replied, "I do now." So much for being an authority on all things English-related.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Tolosako Ihauteriak
Despite having been in Europe for Carnival twice before, I had not previously celebrated it. Although I had vacations during this time, I never actually thought to plan anything to celebrate Carnival. This year, upon finding out that I had no plans except choir rehearsal during our week-long vacation, one of the English teachers at the high school decided that I needed something to do and proceeded to start making day trips for me within the Basque Country. She told me that I had to experience Carnival in Tolosa. I really had no idea where Tolosa was, having only heard of it once before in Basque class when our teacher told us that going to Carnival in Tolosa "merezi du", that it's worth it. Now having been told twice that it was something I needed to experience, I began to consider it. When several other teachers, upon hearing our discussion of my lack of plans, told me that Carnival in Tolosa was "legendary", I knew I had to go.
At this point, there were several of us in the English department room discussing my new plan of action. Another of the English teachers told me that Sunday was the best day to go and she gladly looked up the bus schedule for me. The trip was only about two hours in each direction, giving me plenty of time to enjoy the sights and sounds of the day.
Now, I was not about to walk into a city of fully-costumed people without having a costume myself, so, after class that day I ran around the entire city in search of the necessary items to make the perfect costume, a transparent umbrella and bubble wrap. You may be thinking that I didn't know what I was going to do with these items, but, never fear, I had a plan. I was determined to be a jellyfish. When I told some of my students of my plan some seemed wowed, others confused, others laughed at me. They did not understand the awesomeness that would be my costume.
After spending the better part of four hours constructing my masterpiece, I was eager to show my costume to the world and couldn't wait for Sunday morning. Having gone out with my friends on Saturday night, I had a difficult time forcing myself out of bed on Sunday morning, resulting in my getting up an hour later than expected. At least I was awake enough to think to check the weather report for Tolosa, which resulted in a change to my costume. The forecast said to expect rain for much of the day. Armed with an umbrella, I wasn't too worried, but I decided that wearing an all-white ensemble was probably not the best idea.
I'm not the biggest fan of long bus trips, but seeing how there was seemingly no other way to get there, I left my house bright and early to catch the bus, umbrella in hand. The bus wasn't nearly as crowded as I thought it would be, and the trip wasn't as bad as I expected. For the first 10 minutes. What the teachers neglected to tell me was that the bus had to pass over many narrow, winding roads through the mountains. As soon as we began our ascent up the mountain, I knew it was going to be a long two hours. The two hours felt much longer as I tried to settle into a position that would help me keep the contents of my stomach on the inside. I closed my eyes and checked the time every time the bus stopped in hopes that we had arrived at my destination. When we got there I gladly jumped into the rain to begin my exploring. Not having any idea where I was going, I decided the best approach would be to follow the people dressed as clowns, zombies, Egyptians, and the like. Normally, I try to fly under the radar when I visit new cities, but as I was the only jellyfish for miles, it wasn't possible. I was definitely one of the most original costumes there, and received many compliments on my unique outfit. Several people even asked to take my picture. I wasn't as brave as they were about asking strangers if I could take their pictures, so all of mine were of the sneak-attack variety. I do have to admit, though, that being stealthy is not easy when dressed as a jellyfish in the pouring rain.
Word of the Day:
English - jellyfish
Spanish - la medusa
Basque - marmoka
At this point, there were several of us in the English department room discussing my new plan of action. Another of the English teachers told me that Sunday was the best day to go and she gladly looked up the bus schedule for me. The trip was only about two hours in each direction, giving me plenty of time to enjoy the sights and sounds of the day.
Now, I was not about to walk into a city of fully-costumed people without having a costume myself, so, after class that day I ran around the entire city in search of the necessary items to make the perfect costume, a transparent umbrella and bubble wrap. You may be thinking that I didn't know what I was going to do with these items, but, never fear, I had a plan. I was determined to be a jellyfish. When I told some of my students of my plan some seemed wowed, others confused, others laughed at me. They did not understand the awesomeness that would be my costume.
After spending the better part of four hours constructing my masterpiece, I was eager to show my costume to the world and couldn't wait for Sunday morning. Having gone out with my friends on Saturday night, I had a difficult time forcing myself out of bed on Sunday morning, resulting in my getting up an hour later than expected. At least I was awake enough to think to check the weather report for Tolosa, which resulted in a change to my costume. The forecast said to expect rain for much of the day. Armed with an umbrella, I wasn't too worried, but I decided that wearing an all-white ensemble was probably not the best idea.
 |
| Black was definitely the better choice, as the water that clung to the tentacles resulted in my getting completely soaked. |
 |
| How I saw the world. |
 |
| the decorated balconies |
 |
| I loved how they made the baby stroller into the pirate ship. |
 |
| This astronaut with a baby as a jet pack was one of my favorite costumes. |
 |
| Tolosa isn't close enough to the ocean to even consider having a surf school. |
English - jellyfish
Spanish - la medusa
Basque - marmoka
Friday, February 10, 2012
Butt-Scootin' Boogie
First of all, I apologize for not having written in so long. It's not that I haven't had stories to tell, it's just that I haven't had the time to sit and write them down. This story, however, deserves to be written down. I hope that my writing does it justice and it isn't one of those "you had to be there" moments.
I should preface this story by telling you that these students are 16-17 years old. Last Friday was a particularly interesting day in one of my classes. Half of the class had skipped to attend the festival in a nearby town, and the half that remained didn't feel like doing actual work. This could be attributed to several factors: it was a Friday afternoon, half the class was missing, there was snow on the ground from the previous day's snowfall, and just general teenage laziness. However, what they were lacking in willingness to work, they made up for in energy. It took me several minutes to calm them down and convince them that we were going to correct their homework. I couldn't get upset with them for being restless and complaining about working because at least they were complaining in English.
The activity we were correcting was one in which the students were given the beginning of a sentence and had to complete it logically. The first student was given the sentence-starter, "Animals in zoos would be better off if...". Knowing this student, I was expecting something like the phrase "they had more space" to complete the sentence, so I was a bit unprepared when the answer was "they ate more fruit", making the entire sentence, "Animals in zoos would be better off if they ate more fruit."
"Not all animals eat fruit," I responded
"Yes they do. All animals need fruit."
"Do lions eat fruit?"
"Yes."
It was at this point when I noticed something strange out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to look, I couldn't help but be surprised by what I saw. On of the students was seated on the floor with his feet in the air trying to propel himself across the floor with only the use of his arms. Yes, he was scooting across the floor on his rear end. I asked in the most intimidating voice I could muster while trying not to laugh, "WHAT...ARE...YOU...DOING?" In response to my question the student stood up, slightly embarrassed, with the "oh-dear-I-just-got-caught-by-the-teacher" look and was unable to give me an explanation. The student with whom I had just had the fruit debate responded with a straight face, "When you don't eat enough fruit, that's what happens."
The entire class lost control at this point and began laughing. I really wanted to scold the boy who was scooting across the floor for disrupting the class, but I couldn't because I was trying to control my laughter. When the laughter subsided, the student in question tried to convince the class that he had been trying to dance, but the damage had already been done.
This story is definitely one that I will never forget. Have you ever experienced a similar situation?
I should preface this story by telling you that these students are 16-17 years old. Last Friday was a particularly interesting day in one of my classes. Half of the class had skipped to attend the festival in a nearby town, and the half that remained didn't feel like doing actual work. This could be attributed to several factors: it was a Friday afternoon, half the class was missing, there was snow on the ground from the previous day's snowfall, and just general teenage laziness. However, what they were lacking in willingness to work, they made up for in energy. It took me several minutes to calm them down and convince them that we were going to correct their homework. I couldn't get upset with them for being restless and complaining about working because at least they were complaining in English.
The activity we were correcting was one in which the students were given the beginning of a sentence and had to complete it logically. The first student was given the sentence-starter, "Animals in zoos would be better off if...". Knowing this student, I was expecting something like the phrase "they had more space" to complete the sentence, so I was a bit unprepared when the answer was "they ate more fruit", making the entire sentence, "Animals in zoos would be better off if they ate more fruit."
"Not all animals eat fruit," I responded
"Yes they do. All animals need fruit."
"Do lions eat fruit?"
"Yes."
It was at this point when I noticed something strange out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to look, I couldn't help but be surprised by what I saw. On of the students was seated on the floor with his feet in the air trying to propel himself across the floor with only the use of his arms. Yes, he was scooting across the floor on his rear end. I asked in the most intimidating voice I could muster while trying not to laugh, "WHAT...ARE...YOU...DOING?" In response to my question the student stood up, slightly embarrassed, with the "oh-dear-I-just-got-caught-by-the-teacher" look and was unable to give me an explanation. The student with whom I had just had the fruit debate responded with a straight face, "When you don't eat enough fruit, that's what happens."
The entire class lost control at this point and began laughing. I really wanted to scold the boy who was scooting across the floor for disrupting the class, but I couldn't because I was trying to control my laughter. When the laughter subsided, the student in question tried to convince the class that he had been trying to dance, but the damage had already been done.
This story is definitely one that I will never forget. Have you ever experienced a similar situation?
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