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Life in China ~ a Party v. the Party

LMAO!

I was asking my students on our WeChat group (like a Group Chat) if they had class Monday night so we can schedule our exams.

D quickly replied “No, I have a party class.” 0_0

Party class? Say what!?! And I wasn’t invited? How rude!

The group erupted with 63+ Chinese-language messages in a matter of minutes as the class leader started with “What the HE** is a party class.” Another “ooh, class on how to dance.” “Let’s Party!” “Can I come?” “Do you get to drink?” Lots and lots of laughing pictures and emoticons.

At the same time a whole line of students with”I don’t think the teacher will understand.” “Oh, that’s a bad translation.” “The teacher is going to think you want to go party.” “This is very bad.” “You shouldn’t say that. You cannot trust translation my dear.” “Don’t you know to stop and check every three words? D replies again–“Oh, no! Now I think the teacher will misunderstand me!” (Horror Face).

At which point, the whole group started posting a series of Chinese phrases that have really bad English translations. Like “My father-in-law isn’t coming” which translates as “The father-in-law will not be coming to my bed.” It was bad 😛

My response: “Is that a class party? Party during class? Class about how to party?” This sounds fun and now I’m sad I wasn’t invited to the party lesson! 😦 😦 😦 ” LOL

Finally, one of them came back with a screen capture of the definition and translation in the Chinese-English dictionary of “Communist Party”–“It’s this one teacher, not a “party class” it’s THE Party class.” Ah! Makes Much More Sense. . . . And a much better reason for not being able to make the Exam on time! 😛

Tags: Bad English, Chinglish, Funny, Humor, Life in China, party, Real Life, Translation, Translation fails

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Categories China, China, Humor, Life, Teaching, TESOL, Travel

Teaching Humor: Religious ESL Mix-Ups

17 Feb

Had a rather hilarious ESL fail / miscommunication error with one of my Ethics students this past semester.

One of the chapters in our textbook covers the professional approach to ethics taken by various religions including Hinduism and Islam. Consequently, we spend part of a class discussing the fact that Islam is based upon the Koran and that it is very important to Muslims and effects how they approach Business (some of my students will be working in Dubai so this is a good lesson for them to learn!).

The day before the final, one of my students came to see me. This girl is adorable, brilliant, and a good friend of mine, but her ESL is not perfect and she has some trouble understanding all of the content.

She said she had a problem with the whole “Koran” thing because “you [the teacher] kept saying it was Islam, but I always thought the Koran was Christian.”

0_0 ? I could understand them not knowing what the Koran was – many of my students don’t know the name of the religious book. But how did we come to the conclusion that the Koran was Christian?

Then she added: “you know, the higher Koran are atheist and the bottom, South Koran are Christian. I don’t think there is a lot of Islam in Koran.”

😛 Aha! The light went one!

“Korea? Do you mean North and South Korea?”

Hahaha! Once I understood the mix-up it was easy to see the problem. Because of the accent here in Henan, “Korean” often sounds a lot like “Koran.” That long E sound is extremely important. And they look similar too, not helping.

Once we went over the fact in simpler terms that the Koran was a book and not a country, it was much easier. 🙂

Sigh! The little things you think are so easy to teach only to find out were an epic fail later.