Funny Mistakes in English Class - Inappropriate Edition

in #humor7 years ago

Unintentionally Perfect English

Funny Mistakes in English Class - Inappropriate Edition

I teach English in a German-speaking country and while my students are very good in general, they still make some mistakes (who doesn't?). Sometimes it is syntax, sometimes word choice, grammar or pronunciation errors. Sometimes what they say doesn't make sense at all, or it does in some weird way I can decipher.

Other times though, what they say comes out in perfect English but is either not want they wanted to say or said in a way that has an amusing and oft-times inappropriate interpretation. Below I will provide just a few of my favorite examples from my list of "Unintentionally Perfect English" that I keep in my notebook (and what I think they wanted to say in German if relevant - my German isn't perfect, so bear with me).

  • "I was tripping on my mom's garden dwarf. It was fun but my mom got mad." German: "Ich stolperte über den Gartenzwerg meiner Mutter. Es war lustig aber meine Mutter ärgerte sich."

  • "I made dinner, we ate, then spent the whole night on the table." When asked what a student did with his girlfriend the night before. Ger: "Ich habe Abendessen gekocht, wir haben gegessen und dann verbrachten wir den ganzen Abend am Tisch."

  • "I never wear panties to school, only when I go out at night!" Thinking 'panties' was the word for 'hotpants'.

  • Learning to use "a little late", student announces: "That's what I always say when I get laid at school. I'm only a little laid!"

  • "He tried really hard to satisfy my mom, but he couldn't," said while discussing the father's attempt to find just the right present for Mother's Day. Followed right up with, "He hasn't bought her anything that fits for years." German (something like): "Er hat doch versucht meine Mutter zufriedenzustellen, aber schaffte er nicht. Er hat ihr seit Jahren nichts passendes gekauft."

Hope they were worth a chuckle!

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Tags: humor teaching english deutsch inappropriate humour funny classroom education

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This post has received a 2.17 % upvote from @buildawhale thanks to: @cupidzero.

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This is funny! :P

What's funnier is when they didn't realize what they just said lol

Glad you liked it :) Yes, all of these were delivered with a degree of earnestness that made them doubly endearing.

Would you be interested in making a german course here on Steemit? I planned on doing it anyways and I would not mind having a professional involved, especially when german is not his native language.

That sounds kind of fun, how are you thinking of making that happen?

I would like to give a special tag like #learngerman. I thought that we maybe coordinate the first few posts we make in the tag so we that we cover the basics together and then just post individually in the tag, ofc I would like to bounce ideas of each other, but I don't really want to plan out 1 year of german lessons.

I am a little lost on how to start introducing people to the language. I thought of covering the pronunciation of the vocals at first, because I feel like that is biggest difference in German and English language on the other hand it might not be that engaging of a post...

Sounds fun. It may be worth just having an initial post that talks about the similarities between German and English since both are Germanic languages, point out some cognates and build the motivation to learn German with some fun and easy examples. Present some of the best online references for learning German etc.

No need to really plan out a year in advance, there is a logical progression of cases and most frequent vocabulary. You have any books about learning German as a foreign language? And one of us can start a thread in our blog where we can have a running conversation of what to do, which at the end of the adventure we can reference as a history for a write-up on the experience.

I am still very much learning steemit, I am not sure how the hashtags work...

build the motivation to learn German with some fun and easy examples

Yeah that sounds like a much better idea for a first post. Thanks.

I don't have a book for learning German as a foreign language. Do you have any recommendations?

You can search for tags, https://steemit.com/trending/deutsch like this with deutsch being the tag.

Pretty much the Bible for German grammar in the US is "Hammer's Grammar" for advanced students. For beginners, the Na klar! series has been around for a long time (I had this if I remember correctly). I have also heard of but not used the Willkommen! series. I wouldn't necessarily say buy one (maybe you can find one online?), but taking a look at the table of contents could give some rough structural guidelines.

thanks for the recommendations

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