Weird weekend
Oct. 7th, 2006 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sister_luckI'm spending entirely too much time this holiday with work. There are the test papers I have to mark, there are lessons to be planned and then there is also the distracting presence of the internet. I've just been doing a English grammar101 course - don't know why, but these interactive tests where you click on the answers just fascinate me, even when they're very very dull. I came across it while trying to find some teaching material about the play I will have to teach soon. We've recently changed to centralized exams which means that we've got set texts now and while I've been teaching most of the set texts anyway, this one is new for me and probably a fairly hard sell.
Also, this is amusing me: Someone has unearthed a Neue Deutsche Welle hit and claims it sounds a bit like the Buffy tune. I was already around when that song came out and I don't think there's much of a resemblance. Anyway, getting your information from google-translated webpages produces even more oddities. The commenters are rather amused at the lyrics as google has kindly translated the verb form "düse" from düsen, which basically means to travel or run fast and derives from compound words like Düsenflugzeug (jet plane) with "nozzle" which is a fairly accurate translation for the noun Düse which is most frequently used in compound words where it means jet. Now we're back at grammar 101. It's a bit like my students who are so happy that they're now allowed to use German-English dictionaries during tests which means that some of their sentences read like google translations. It's not really their fault that the German noun Ziel can mean destination, aim, target or goal (which again might mean something else altogether). Sometimes it takes quite a bit of time and dictionary research until I find out that looking up the verb ansprechen can produce to respond, because brakes respond and in German we use ansprechen in that context, but the word they had been looking for is actually to address or speak to someone directly. So somehow they've managed to come up with a word that has the opposite meaning of the one they're looking for. Another puzzle was the student who wrote about the second counterfoil instead of the second paragraph, because yes, Abschnitt, literally off-cut can also be the ticket stub that is returned to you after it's been checked. Mind-boggling!
Also, this is amusing me: Someone has unearthed a Neue Deutsche Welle hit and claims it sounds a bit like the Buffy tune. I was already around when that song came out and I don't think there's much of a resemblance. Anyway, getting your information from google-translated webpages produces even more oddities. The commenters are rather amused at the lyrics as google has kindly translated the verb form "düse" from düsen, which basically means to travel or run fast and derives from compound words like Düsenflugzeug (jet plane) with "nozzle" which is a fairly accurate translation for the noun Düse which is most frequently used in compound words where it means jet. Now we're back at grammar 101. It's a bit like my students who are so happy that they're now allowed to use German-English dictionaries during tests which means that some of their sentences read like google translations. It's not really their fault that the German noun Ziel can mean destination, aim, target or goal (which again might mean something else altogether). Sometimes it takes quite a bit of time and dictionary research until I find out that looking up the verb ansprechen can produce to respond, because brakes respond and in German we use ansprechen in that context, but the word they had been looking for is actually to address or speak to someone directly. So somehow they've managed to come up with a word that has the opposite meaning of the one they're looking for. Another puzzle was the student who wrote about the second counterfoil instead of the second paragraph, because yes, Abschnitt, literally off-cut can also be the ticket stub that is returned to you after it's been checked. Mind-boggling!
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Date: 2006-10-07 06:06 pm (UTC)I also had a student (whose mother was Turkish, and father was Italian) tell me that he was "Part Italian, part Turkey." - Which part? The leg, the wing, the beak...? ;-) I have to admit that I laughed quite a lot. I really couldn't help it! Then his friend explained what he'd just said to me, and the poor boy blushed quite a lot!
Oh and one more: pronunciation skills! I do realise that English pronunciation is very very difficult because there aren't any rules to tell you how to pronounce words, and two words that are spelled similarly could make totally different sounds. But anyway... One of the boys was reading out a passage about Buckingham Palace, which was built by the Dukes of Buckingham.... He pronounced it slightly differently and told me that the palace had been built by the ducks of Buckingham. Awwwww :-)
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Date: 2006-10-08 04:22 pm (UTC)Being a Turkey is quite common here - it's pretty high on the list of favourite blunders.
It's sooo difficult not to laugh and sometimes I fail especially if the kids come up with something slightly rude. The good thing is that they don't see and hear me when I'm marking!
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Date: 2006-10-07 09:51 pm (UTC)Of course English is even worse with the variety of pronunciations for words with the same spelling!
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Date: 2006-10-08 04:26 pm (UTC)Yes, context is key, but usually the problem is that my students are unaware that what is one word with different meanings can only be translated by different words, like in the destination/goals example. They just don't know that the word is wrong in the context and while the dictionary might tell them they don't read it properly.