Names and Places.

I was thinking the other day about how confusing Japanese names can be within an English-speaking context. It's an interesting fact that Japan's English-speaking skills are among the lowest in Asia, despite the American influence since the post-World War II era. If you look at an itemized list, Japan ranks just above Mongolia and just under every other country in Asia in terms of average English level. Despite ALTs like myself in Japan for more than 20 years, the level is still lower than other major Asian countries. And I began to wonder ... maybe it was because of the names?

Take for example a few common female names: Ai, Yuu, Mi, Mai. Ai (I), Yuu (You), Mi (Me) and Mai (My) are pretty common among the girls I'm teaching in Jr. High. In Japanese, you don't conjugate verbs for person or gender, so encountering a linguistic system that does has got to be difficult in the first place, but with these specific names, it can be near impossible to conjugate correctly, or get a sense of the English system.

For example: Mai's dog likes Yuu. Yuu is a Dr. Yuu is Mi's father. Mi likes Ai. Ai is Mai's dog.

Exactly. No wonder we have students saying "You's likes Me's shoes?" and other such nonsense.


On another note altogether, Big-Mouth-sensei is quite the character. I'm not sure that I've properly introduced him, however. Apparently, he's very wealthy, and he loves to tell everyone about it. If I ask him how his lunch was, he'll reply "IT WAS VERY CHEAP! I DIDN'T LIKE IT!" Of course, if it was expensive, it was delicious. Such is the mind of Big-Mouth-sensei.

The fact that he is constantly yelling (many theories have been bandied about; some say he is partially deaf, others claim that he enjoys the sounds of his voice so much that he thinks everyone else in shouting-range must, too) is funny enough. But, he's got a wonderful store about a former student that always leaves me in stitches.

There was a former student who used to have a fondness for other people's weiners. By a few accounts, he always managed to sneak a handful of manhood from the former ALTs or Japanese teachers. Luckily, I've mostly escaped such behavior during my tenure in and about my town, but this particular student was notorious for it. Anyway, Big-Mouth-sensei was trying to describe it to me in his peculiar way of speaking English, and could only manage to say "HE BEAT MY PENIS! HE ... WOULD ... BEAT IT!" at a volume that all in the teacher's room could hear. And, while the average level of English is fairly low, there were a few English teachers around. In addition, the word "penis" has been transliterated into Japanese, and everyone is aware of what it means. Granted, Big-Mouth-sensei meant to say that this student was a little rough with the equipment in his perverted attempts, but sometimes, rather than something being lost in the translation, sometimes a little something can get picked up; it often makes for a good laugh.