One of my students amused me this week. We were reading a news story in class, each student taking a turn reading a paragraph aloud. When it was Nina's turn, she came to this sentence, "Three men were involved in the plot." The word "plot" sounds very much like a derogatory term for a vagina in Quebec French. So when she got to this word, she stopped and very carefully sounded out the word. With a very worried and concerned look on her face, "p--lll----ahhhhh---t?" I said, "Yes, plot! That's it." Titters all around the class. Then I made everyone say it all around the class. Plot, plot,plot,plot,plot. We were howling by the end of it. It was as if we were all saying bearded clam. The word came up a couple more times in the article which resulted in waves of laughter and by the end of it, we had all sprung tears.
You probably had to be there, but oh it's times like that that I love my job.
14 comments:
I can just picture you guys. LOL
I'm laughing just thinking about it!?
Students are the best part of the job. The worst is grading and dealing with the administration. I also like to go out drinking with all my co-workers.
I remember in my first year German class how we all like to say the German word for "bright". As ninth graders in the 1960's we could go around the school saying "hell" and no one could do anything about it.
Quel est le mot pour "pussy" en quebecois?
One of the reasons why I love taking a language class is it's just plain fun. Last week we learned that melon in french is a deragatory word for a Muslim. Of course we thought of other meanings for melon. LOL. Also the ride(ing) issue came up in our class too, I immediately thught of you.
Harking back to my younger french days, we used to titter about the word fatiguee. How funny that even as a child in the 60's in first grade I knew that gay was something people made fun of.
One of the ways to say "excuse me" in Japanese is "Shitsuraishimasu"
You get to say "shit."
We all remembered that one.
"derogatory word for a vagina"
THAT'S the line that made ME laugh because my mind immediately jumped to 20 other ones!
The plot thickens. I bet they would have fun with that one!
Oh that's great about your student. Laughter is key for learning a new language.
...the plot thickens. Ha.
I love the way you wrote about how careful she was. It came across so clearly.
I love words!
I bet your students love you.
I want to take more language classes.
And I was worried about "mud pie"!
Nothing like a good vagina joke to educate the masses. Well done, well done.
I see you're a Tom Robbins fan. Excellent.
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