Haha! I am an ESL teacher in Korea. One of the funniest things I’ve had a student submit was about their family’s favorite foods. A student somehow managed to translate “chicken” as “cock”. More than one of their family members liked “cock” a whole lot.
ESL homework
Submitted 1 day ago by GreenDust@lemmings.world to [deleted]
https://lemmings.world/pictrs/image/1f4fda71-909e-42f7-8797-f3c09f71c1cc.jpeg
Comments
Underwaterbob@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Oh, I know how that one happened. A rooster is also called a cock, though we don’t much use that word anymore, for obvious reasons. Probably didn’t know the word and checked Google Translate or something similar.
TheSeveralJourneysOfReemus@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Bassman1805@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
It’s also the French word for rooster (though spelled “coq” in that language). If these kids are learning multiple languages at once, that could cause some confusion, given how often French and English overlap.
mastertigurius@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Hhhhehhhhh… Why do some teachers feel the need to be such dicks? Just smile, have a laugh, get with the joke, let it spice up your life.
AyuTsukasa@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I can laugh and not give them the points at the same time.
turdas@suppo.fi 1 day ago
The “???” suggests they didn’t get the joke. Like come on, not even a sarcastic “very funny, 2/5”?
Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Same score but an LOL instead of ???
mastertigurius@lemmy.world 1 day ago
No points for you then.
drcobaltjedi@programming.dev 1 day ago
One time back in AP physics on a test I was prompted with “Find the accelerating force on the electron”. I could not think of the way to do that in the moment, so I literally wrote No, and wrote down a fake answer so I could use that number for the next part of the problem. I got back the test a few days later and the teacher wrote a smiley face down there. Apparently I made her laugh so long and so hard her family had to check in on her so she just gave me the points.
faythofdragons@piefed.social 1 day ago
Back in middle school history, they wanted to know who the UK Prime Minister was during WWI, and I couldn’t remember so I wrote down James Bond, and got half credit for making the teacher laugh.
AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
in college calc classes, my handwriting is famously quite poor. I’d scribble down some illegible notes and formulas, draw a few pictures illustrating the problem, then come up with a random answer. most of my classes graded work, not correct answers, so if I had an inkling of the right way to do it I could fake it and usually get at least 75% credit for the question.
always hated the questions that make you use the answer from previous questions. always a good time when you get to the end and have a nonsensical answer and have to redo 4 pages to find where you forgot to carry a 1.
shneancy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
when it’s every now and then it’s great! but some students try to get out of learning by being funny, and it’s your job to actually teach them something
herrvogel@lemmy.world 1 day ago
On our German tests back in hs, there was a vocab section where we’d use words in sentences. I didn’t know one of the words in one of the tests, so I wrote “ich weiß nicht was <word> bedeutet”, which means “I don’t know what <word> means”. Our teacher accepted that one with a laugh, but said it was a one time thing and it would not be allowed again. People still tried their luck with similar tricks after that, but got nothing.
Me, I was just surprised she’d never seen that in her career before. I wasn’t expecting to get any points for that. Thought she for sure would have had other smartass students like me.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Thank you for having the sane take.
homes@piefed.world 1 day ago
Plus, if that kid can write in Cyrillic cursive, good for them!
GTG3000@programming.dev 6 hours ago
If it’s homework, the teacher has to grade multiple classes with 30-something students in them, so they probably ran on autopilot at that point.
…equally likely, they had a laugh but this is not an acceptable way to answer it. Most likely done by the dumbass “funny” kid in class who already tired them out.
WindyRebel@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I’m in my master’s program for elementary education. If I saw this, I would just pull them to the side and ask them to translate it to me as English. If it comes out sounding plausible, I’d give them full points because they knew how to say it. They could obviously already read it since they knew how to answer the question. So the writing could come later if that was an issue.
If it was a joke, I’d let it slide but let them know that in the future I need them to write it fully in English.
mastertigurius@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Yes! Thank you! This is how it should be done. Too much of my education was ruined by burnt-out, jaded teachers who wouldn’t even acknowledge your existence or even laugh at you when you don’t understand why points were subtracted in your test. You sound like someone who’s serious about this stuff, and I’m cheering you on!
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s being a dick to express confusion about why a student is mocking your lessons for them? But the student doing it is just a hilarious and harmless joker, of course. Pretty weird take tbh
mastertigurius@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
You dont even know what subject this test was in. Judging from the information provided in the picture, the assignment was completed. If teachers want the kids to do stuff their way, they’ll need to put more effort into how they word their assignments.
mudkip@lemdro.id 14 hours ago
As someone who understands this language, this is hilarious.
Stitch0815@feddit.org 8 hours ago
Could you kindly translatem?
Saprophyte@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
It’s around the corner Thanks friend You’re welcome
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Of course! Go via metro around the corner.
eah@programming.dev 21 hours ago
I reject your reality and substitute my own!
BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Fun fact, Adam Savage got that quote from an old coworker who lifted it from 1984’s “The Dungeonmaster” which is ‘so bad it’s good’.
imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 hours ago
Am I missing an eyebrow?
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 16 hours ago
Reminds me of how TV shows / movies just depict characters from a non-English country speak their native language for like 2 seconds before switching back to… English… for the rest of the conversation…
like… huh?
oh yea cuz its fiction and they don’t want the audience having to read subtitles all the time…
Like who does that?
I came to the US at age 8 and still have to use my native language at home… like it feel really weird to be using English at home…
FishFace@piefed.social 7 hours ago
Do you find it weird that Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and King Lear are all written in English? We’ve been doing this for centuries.
Having a snippet of native language is a more modern invention as far as I know (because if you can’t rely on the audience understanding the language, you need to subtitle the snippet), but it’s just a way of communicating to the audience in what language the conversation is taking place by showing, rather than telling.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
I think MGS: 3 does this best. The entire game takes place in Russia and most of the dialogue outside of with command is with Russians so they just say that the characters are speaking Russian to each other. Pretty the scientist you meet at the beginning of the game even comments on Snakes Russian being good.
Narauko@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
The Hunt for Red October did the same, the first minutes are in Russian with subtitles and then it slips into English mid sentence as if the audience adapted to the language. Very effective actually.
Doesn’t change the fact that it’s Sean Connery’s brogue on a Russian naval captain, but at least it somewhat explains it. Clearly the captain is from wherever the Scottish equivalent for Russia is.
macaw_dean_settle@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
*yeah, not yea or nay. It isn’t a vote.
javiwhite@feddit.uk 8 hours ago
Yea has been used online as a synonym for yeah for going on 2 decades at this point.
Appreciate they’re both spelt the same, but context clues should help you differentiate. For example, this is a comment on a social media platform, not a spokesperson in a decision making chamber, such as a house of representatives or boardroom; therefore we can safely assume it’s a person agreeing with a statement and not someone calling for a vote.
wieson@feddit.org 1 day ago
Sometimes, I think it’s funny that in Anglo countries it’s referred to as ESL, English as a second language.
For us (and I guess many others) it was always English as a foreign language. Could be first foreign language, second foreign language…
nialv7@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
second language just means any languages that aren’t your first language. not the second language you learn.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Every time I hear ESL I go “English Sign Language?” before remembering that’s ASL.
wieson@feddit.org 2 hours ago
Fun fact: American sign language differs from British sign language, as it is derived from french sign language. So a french and American signer would understand each other, while a Brit would not.
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Majority of the world speaks a single language or two at most. Shit half the people I see online can’t even speak one.
It makes sense you when you look at it like that. most people in ESL programs only speak a single language, if you speak more than two you probably don’t need ESL classes and can learn on your own.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Languages come in tiers. English is the global lingua franca. People use it to speak to anyone, no matter whether English native speaker or not. If someone from Norway wants to talk to someone from Japan, they’ll most likely use English since both of them likely speak it.
Then there’s regional lingua francas, languages like Spanish, Russian or Mandarin. These languages are popular in specific parts of the world and often used to get around there. Someone from Ukraine can speak to someone from Belarus using Russian.
Lastly, there’s local languages that are spoken only in a country (or even only a part of a country). People speak them because that’s what they were grown up with.
So in general, there’s 4 “language slots” of languages people speak:
- The global lingua franca
- The regional lingua franca
- The language of the country they live in
- The language they grew up with
One language can fill multiple slots.
So for example, if you grew up in Ukraine and moved to Germany, you might speak the following languages, according to the slots above:
- English
- Russian
- German
- Ukranian
If you are born in Wales and never moved away, it might look like this:
- English
- English
- English
- Welsh
If you spent your life in the US, it would be like this:
- English
- English
- English
- English
This is the reason why people living in countries with lower-tier languages frequently speak 3-4 languages, while English native speakers really struggle to even learn the basics of one additional language. Because the former group has an actual use for more than one language, while the latter one don’t.
Tja@programming.dev 18 hours ago
Source? I think speaking one language is pretty rare. Most Europeans speak at least two, most Africans I’ve met speak 3, lots of Indians speak 3 as well…
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 10 hours ago
half the people I see online can’t even speak one
It makes sense you when you look at it like that.
Proving your own point, nice.
wieson@feddit.org 21 hours ago
I think anyone in India and Africa speaks 4 languages easily.
- their regional language (i.e. Masaai, Yoruba, Xhosa)
- the over-regional language (Arabic, Swahili)
- a coloniser language (English, French)
- and possibly just enough of a neighbouring regional language
I think many Chinese people are also bilingual (i.e. Wu+ always mandarin). They often learn another language in school (English or something geographically closer, like Korean).
PrimeMinisterKeyes@leminal.space 20 hours ago
Well, if you add up the number of speakers of second languages according to this page, and assume anybody speaks at least one language as their first one, you’ll end up with almost exactly 1.4 as the average number of languages any given human speaks.
That’s the lower bound, though, as I only added up second languages where the number of speakers is at least one million, and Wikipedia doesn’t list many more anyway.
Cintari@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I thought it was renamed to ESOL, or English for Speakers of Other Languages, in 2000 or so. I guess that wasn’t a totally universal change.
davidagain@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Now EAL, English as an additional language.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 16 hours ago
English as 4th (Spoken) Language Speaker here…
Before English I have:
Cantonese
Mandarin
Taishanese (well… for Taishanese, I mostly only understand but not speak because parents never spoke it to us, only when talking to the older generations and I overhear it)Sorry for the low-key brag but since nobody here speak these languages so I just wanna mention it xD
Scavenger_Solardaddy@lemmy.ml 12 hours ago
For me English is my 3rd language.
My mother tongue is Tamil, Malay is my 2nd. I do understand a bit of Hokkien but rarely practice it.
KeenFlame@feddit.nu 10 hours ago
They don’t mean like a hot list for girls you like or your favorite songs, every one after native is “second”
icelimit@lemmy.ml 12 hours ago
English is my 5th language.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Viewing it as primary/secondary makes more sense of it.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If you’re learning in an English speaking country, they’re not going to call English a foreign language.
suddenlyme@lemmy.zip 21 hours ago
Its ESL in English Speaking countries, and EFL in non- English speaking countries
Rooster326@programming.dev 23 hours ago
Because English as an Nth language doesn’t quite have the same ring.
Jyek@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
It’s not a foreign language in English speaking countries…
alexc@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Reversed, this is how English as a first language conversations go in foreign lands
mech@feddit.org 1 day ago
In many countries they don’t even ask. They recognize your accent and reply in English right away.
helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 1 day ago
In American English it would go
“Do you speak English”
“Nein”
“O K. I. Will. Talk. Slow. So. You. Can. Under. stand. Me.”
C1pher@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Modern problems require modern solutions!
Bazell@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Why would the question have 3 lines, it’s almost entrapment
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
сука блять
IPhone@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
.
hansolo@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Боб победит!
tias@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
You: Cool! The entrance to the subway is around the corner. Bob: Thanks for the help, friend! You: You’re welcome! Good luck.
homes@piefed.world 1 day ago
I have always thought that being able to read, let alone write, Cyrillic cursive is a form of magic
milk_steak@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Obligatory лишишь (“you will deprive”). Cyrillic cursive really is wild
Image
AppleTea@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Image
Damn, these look kinda fun…
gegil@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
I write all text in my own custom font, which only i can read. I cant barely read other cursive cyrillic text.
red_bull_of_juarez@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I feel like at least the example here is very legible. What I can not do is read Sütterlin, a historic form of German handwriting script. The text in this postcard is German, which is my native language. Except for some very simple words like “wir” or “mit”, I cannot read this.
Image
ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I can sound out horrific guttural Cyrillic text thanks to Geoguessr, but this just looks indecipherable to me. The urge to leap at typical Latin script pronunciation is much harder to stave off for some reason, and half of the glyphs just look completely alien to me.
Language really is a fucking miracle
BCsven@lemmy.ca 23 hours ago
I don’t think bad marks were justified. This is how I see every interaction go with polyglot colleagues, its like a modem handshake and they settle into the most comfortable common language
cRazi_man@europe.pub 1 day ago
You: you’re inside it already my dude
Bob: o rly?
You: ya rly
Bob: thanks bro
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You: the existence of the subway is actually a lie to make Russia look strong to the west.
Bob: oh damn
You: we aren’t allowed to talk about it in English. The birds are microphones.