a selection of amusing things from my German students.
Spelling of Vegetable:
batchteballs
fetchdebales
wechtables
vachtebould <-- my favorite
wegetable
Questions I've been asked in class or by other Germans (may be added to). Most of these have many sarcastic answers that only occurred within my own head, but luckily I have the sense to hold my tongue.
-Do you have friends in America?
-America is in England, which is in Africa. Right? Do you have lions in America?
-Do you have black people in America?
-What's the best thing you've ever done in America?
-Why do Americans love fast food so much?
-Have you ever done drugs?
-How many famous people do you know?
-(on first meeting a 7th grade class) Do you have any brothers and sisters?
Me: Yes, 2 brothers.
Girl: Is he cute? *class breaks into giggles*
Me: I think they're a little old for you.
-Why do you make the Indians live on reservations? (They still feel America is very cowboys and Indians type living as far as Native Americans are concerned. They wrote entire dialogues where they were supposed to be interviewing a Native American and there were a lot of BAD stereotypes in there)
Cute mistakes:
Me: "What are your parents' names?"
Jan-Lukas: "I don't have parents"
Me: "That's not right" (I've met his parents)
Jan-Lukas: "Echt" (German for "is so!")
Me: "What is the German word for parents?"
Jan-Lukas: "Haustiere?"
Me: "No, that would be pets. Eltern is parents"
Jan-Lukas: "Oh. I have parents. No pets"
8th grader: "A beer chased her in the woods"
*teacher and I start laughing uncontrollably after this mistake happens about 6 times in a row*
Me: "A bear. Beer is something to drink"
Weird common mistakes :
We meet us on Friday (Wir treffen uns am Freitag)
We make a party (Wir machen eine Party)
talking about Willages (Villages) and Wegetables (vegetables)
Zis, zat, zese, zose, ze (This, that, these, those, the)
capitalizing all Nouns except things like english and amerika (spelled with a -k)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I thoroughly enjoyed this post. So fun. :)
When I was student teaching elementary kids, I sang a note to some second graders and asked them to sing it back, which they did. With most earnest faces, they sang the note back...in operatic voices.
They imitated me well. I won't be using that kind of a voice with second graders any more. :)
I wish I could be a teacher. That was a good post :)
Post a Comment