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Number of children ejected from my classroom kicking and screaming - 2

Number of children I attempted to eject from the room kicking and screaming before I caved in - 1

Number of children I attempted to eject from the room kicking and screaming who should have been ejected before I caved in - 1

Number of children I made cry this week - 2

A slow week.

Pronunciation in English is relatively difficult. Take the numbers. Every number from one to ten has pitfalls for the foreign learner and especially the Japanese.

Wan, Tsu, Suri, Fuo, fwaifu, shixu, seben, eto, naeen, tsen.

And then there are the errors which come about from the individual. I have one student called Kouki who is unable to say the word six properly.

How old are you Kouki?
I`m sex.

This is unnerving for me coming out of a six year old`s mouth especially when his parents dressed him in a yukata whilst the rest are wearing T-shirts and shorts.

They also have difficulties with -g sounds at the end of words such as bag, dog and frog which come out as bak, dok and frok.

Naturally mispronunciation is not limited to the Japanese. I find it nearly impossible to say the trilled “r” in French or produce the adequate amount of phlegm to get around the “ll” in Welsh.

But the most unnerving pronunciation discrepancy in Japanese is the near uniform tendency to say cock instead of cook.

Ok we`re going to do verbs now. What`s this?
Jump. Run. Swim. Cock.

They say it with blissful ignorance even though they will happily call out PEN ISS instead of penis with glee.

The mind boggles…

When I first came to Japan and started teaching English I was adamant that I would teach the Queen`s English. This is strange as I feel no special allegiance to the old lady but felt I needed to promote her language.

This was because I felt a certain pride about the language born in my own country was spoken the world over. Of course the reason it`s so widely spoken is because of America.

Now of course I don`t care any more. 30 four year olds tell me the last letter of the alphabet is zee? Fine. Zebra magically gains an extra e when spoken? Yes it does. I help perpetuate this myth indeed. No in all seriousness I don`t care anymore. If you`d have told me that when I first came here I wouldn`t have believed it.

I`ve been acclimatizing to my my new job but the hardest thing to adjust to is that I speak to native English speakers daily as opposed to once in a blue moon or often less. The thing is they can`t understand a word I`m saying thanks to the mumble and a speed of 500 words a minute.

When I was doing my old job, I went on my own to a random school and spoke English only to 12 year old children, “Do you like bananas?”, eager teachers after a free English lesson, “Do you like bananas?” and on occasions Japanese who were near-fluent English speakers with whom I could often have a normal albeit slightly stilted conversation.

Blogging, the Internet and reading English books, newspapers and magazines have kept my reading and writing skills going strong yet my oratory skills - never having been high in the first place have sunk to new depths. I`m asked a question and my brain has the answer fine but along the journey from brain to mouth the words seem in a competition to see which can arrive out first and the result is they come out as a “mwap” sound.

“Do you like bananas Simon?”
“Mwap.”
“Where are you from?”
“Mwap mwap”
“How long have you been in Japan?”
“Mwap”

Talking to Japanese I could always pass this off as a fault on their part:

“What do you mean you can`t understand what I`m saying? I`m English! I thought you said you could speak English?”

This would come out of course as “mwap mwap?” Sadly with native English speakers, this is impossible. I`m sure I`ll adjust to this or more accurately they`ll adjust to me. It`ll take them time but quicker than me slowing down.

I came back from two days off the computer to find that my old blog that I deleted had been reincarnated as a porn blog which was a shock. Thanks to eddy and akijikan for the tip off. I`ve just finished working my eighth day in a row. Yesterday being a Sunday and today were training for my new job. I went to a seminar where they explained the methods they use and how to employ those methods.

We also had to do simulated activities in small groups pretending to be the teacher and the students. Today I decided to volunteer for the first activity so that I wouldn`t have to do anymore and ended up being called upon for two in a row in the afternoon on top.

The methods they use are different to what I`ve been taught before. Here you speak at a normal speed without using exaggerated gestures or visual clues which goes against all training I`ve ever received in Japan but it seems to be working.

It often felt like a group counselling session. “You`ve got to share the love. Yes that can be difficult. We`re all here with you. or I`m going to make a bargain with you” but was relatively effective.

Yet they stole my Sunday. Today (Monday) was a beautiful day and I spent half an hour outside - the rest in a lamplit room. The most embarassing part was there was a grammar test at the start and a part of it was to give three examples of words that are spelled differently in British English and American English.

I`ve spent nearly two years on this blog (incorrectly) cursing you Americans for warping the English language into a twisted and near-unidentifiable version and I could only name one word that is spelled differently which was jewellery. I should be an expert. Colour was given as an example. My mind drew a blank at 9:00 on a Monday morning which was humiliating. What would you have written?

My English accent is rapidly becoming more and more noticeable when I speak to people. When reading out loud for the benefit of English students to repeat it really slaps you in the face.

When I ask them to repeat something I`ve said, I have to try and stop myself from sniggering. The problem is I`m not laughing at them or their (near flawless) replication of the sounds produced from my mouth but at the realisation of how I sound to foreigners.

It began with post office. In my accent it comes out it close to poe-u-st office. When they repeat it it sounds bizarre. I make it a point to try and cure the Americanisms creeping into Japanese speakers of English. They seem genuinely surprised that you can spell colour with a U in, refer to a game called football without touchdowns and call an intersection a crossroads. Maybe they`re just being polite.

It made me realise that although to my ears English spoken by Japanese in an American accent is no worse than if they spoke it in an English one. Perhaps it`s better that way.

Technorati Tags: Japan, Osaka, Asia, Quaisi, Kansai, Expat, English

“What do you need to make a robot Hiroshi?”
“Well I need a box”
“Anything else?”
“I need some glue too”
“OK”

Despite reports to the contrary, Japan`s robotic industry seemed to have taken a couple of steps backward…

Technorati Tags: Japan, Osaka, Asia, Quaisi, Kansai, Expat, English

Although I refrain from frequenting the typical American burger restaurant, I spend a large amount of time in (typically Western) coffee shops drinking overpriced burnt coffee beans. Through a process of trial and error I have therefore become able to confidently order in Japanese almost any coffee I wish although with the unrelenting heat of the Japanese summer/autumn I am only able to withstand iced coffee instead of the heated alternatives.

On Friday I went to Seattle Coffee and ordered an iced coffee (in near flawless Japanese I hasten to add,) “Aisu ko-hi- hitotsu onegaishimasu!” The girl behind the counter obviously overjoyed to be talking to a Westerner answered me back in English. This rather got on my goat. And she proceeded to demonstrate how well she spoke English by asking every question I had already answered in my earlier demand for the chilled beverage.

Ice Coffee?
Um, yes please
How many 1,2,3?
(Why are you paying for them love? There`s only one person here you know.) One please.
OK, That`ll be 300 yen
Thank you
Have a nice day
(Gaaaaaaaaa!)

Her English was pretty flawless - far better than my Japanese but I`m confident my Japanese was flawless. From an old Japan-zine article there is a list of handy phrases in Japanese for when you are in a, “situation that leaves you lost for words” such as “Tisshu wa mou takusan desu kara” - I don`t need any more tissues thank you or, “Watashino oshiri kara te wo dokete itadakemasen ka?” - could you please remove your hands from my buttocks? But best of all (and most applicable here) is “Sumimasen, tadade eigo wa hanasemasen.” - I`m sorry, I don`t speak English for free.

Technorati Tags: Japan, Osaka, Asia, Quaisi, Kansai, Expat, Coffee, Japanese, Phrase, English

I found an amazing blog called hanzismatter.com via pixelscribbles. It says it is, “dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture” and predominantly features pictures of upside-down or incorrect kanji tatoos (like an Eastern version of engrish.com) such as the man who got eunuch tatooed on his arm. Of course I can`t tell the difference but it makes Reiko laugh.

Technorati Tags: Japan, Osaka, Asia, Quaisi, Kansai, Expat, English

Well I don`t remember or know where I was going with that last post to develop it further so I`ll skip it for now but thank you for the comments although I`m still in Japan you know not France. I guess I wanted to say it`s interesting how other languages assimilate other languages` words. For example a mobile phone in Germany is called “ein Handy” in Japanese “seku hara” is sexual harassment. Don`t combine the two.

Technorati Tags: Japan, Osaka, Asia, Quaisi, Kansai, Expat, English