Language Learning Laughs

Caution: Language Learning may cause headaches, humiliation, and lifelong shame. Consult a professional before attempting on your own.

This article is aimed, in part, at my two recent French-speaking subscribers and another subscriber currently visiting Paris.

In this post, you will learn:

1. How to order five beers in Spanish.

2. How to say, “I put up my tent” in French.

3. How to say, “You should be wearing pants” in Japanese.

Spanish 101: Mi Primera Resaca

Growing up in rural New Hampshire, I did not have many chances to hear anything other than English during my childhood. I do not think I even heard a foreign language spoken until I was in junior high.

Yes, kids, I am older than the Internet, so I did not have 24-hour access to hot and cold running streams of information. I remember playing Kenny Rogers on the 8-track player and listening to a Bill Cosby comedy album. It was the dark ages.

My first introduction to a language other than English came during a party at my house. Not a party for me, but for my parents. My father and his friends were drinking, smoking, and laughing it up, while my siblings and I ran around causing trouble. My brother and I thought we should try some of this beer as well, so we asked for some. I was seven, and he was six.

My father decided to make it a “teaching moment,” and taught us the following phrase in Spanish, “Cinco cervezas, por favor.” We practiced this numerous times, which I know is referred to as drilling, until we got it right. Once we were able to repeat the phrase without error, he finally taught us what it meant.

My son’s first Children’s Day, May 5, 2001.

“Five beers, please.” He told us. To which I asked, “What if you go to the bar alone?” My father, being a learned man, told me, “Then you drink five beers.” Sound logic there. And then, as our reward, he gave us each a beer. However, we were told if we wanted a taste we had to finish them.

That was how I learned my first foreign words and earned my first hangover.

French 101: Relations Familiales Intéressantes

If you grew up in New Hampshire, the language to study was French. While we only had about 13 miles of coastline, 18 if you count the squiggly bits, we were a prime summer destination for tourists from Quebec. You could always spot the Quebecois, as the men were all in speedos and the women were in thongs. As teenagers, we were willing to overlook the former due to the latter.

While we did have Spanish, and even Russian as options at my junior high school, French was the most popular by far. I took two years of French with a teacher from Paris who was a fan of immersion and communicative language teacher. She barely spoke English to us, and if she caught us speaking English during class she would give us detention. This detention involved sitting in her classroom for thirty minutes after school speaking French to her plastic flowers.

My father was willing to overlook my detentions in French class, as he was not a fan of the language in his school days either. He claimed to get by almost entirely through his French language education by using the phrase, “Comme ci, comme ça.” He told me this worked until the day the teacher asked him, “Tu t'es rasé ce matin?” To which he, of course, replied “Comme ci, comme ça.”

My father’s French teacher had caught him out and made him “that guy” in the class. While he did not appreciate the humor as much as she and the other students, it did motivate him to pay better attention in class.

However, it was not until my Freshman year of high school that I achieved meme status for my lack of linguistic skill. According to my high school, two years of junior high French was equal to one year of high school French, so I was put in class with the Sophomores. There were a few more Freshmen, but not many, so I did not feel very comfortable in that class. I did not think I was up to speed.

My day of infamy came without warning, as they often do, when my teacher decided to call on me to translate a simple sentence for the class. Looking back, I think the whole thing may have been a set-up. Let me know if you agree. The question I was asked to translate was simple, “I put up my tent.” I had this. We had recently learned that monter the verb for “assemble, put up, etc.” and I was pretty sure I could guess at tent. So, it was with confidence that I stood up and stated, “J’ai monté ma tante.”

The class erupted. My teacher was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. He had to exit the room to catch his breathe. What the hell had I said? After catching her own breathe, a kind sophomore beside be explained my error. ‘Tent’ is tente, so I should have said, “J’ai monté la tente.” However, I had said “ma tante.”

Simple mistake, really…

So, what do you think? Was this a set up?

Japanese 101: 偽りの友 (False Friends)

The Japanese language was either created as a cruel joke, or intentionally difficult to confuse invaders. There are three writing systems; Kanji, hiragana, and katakana. Hiragana and katakana are straightforward enough, as they are phonetic. Memorize those and it is done. However, you need to memorize over 2,000 kanji to attain fluency, and each of those kanji have multiple readings, including “special” readings, which make no sense.

As if that is not bad enough, it is also the fastest language in the world. So, just when you think you may be able to understand what is being said, the words all just fly by. Also, the Japanese people tend not to show their teeth or tongues while speaking, so any attempt at lip reading is about as useful as watching a ventriloquist dummy.

However, what I want to tell you about is “false friends.” These are ‘load words’ in Japanese which have been borrowed from other languages. For example, did you know that English and Japanese are some of the only languages in the world to use the word “pineapple?” In Japanese, it is パイナップル, which is “painappuru” in the romanized alphabet.

パイナップル is a loan word in Japanese, as is キャップ (cap), キャンパス (campus), and パンツ (pants). Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. If you find yourself in a pinch when speaking Japanese, just use an English work with a Japanese accent.

However, it is not always a perfect match. So it was that in the winter of 1999, I was walking across campus on a cold and snowy winter day. I passed one of my students on the path to class. She was walking slowly, as she had the fashionably high-heeled, yet extremely impractical boots, matched with a short jacket and a min skirt. I suggested she rush to class, and she replied, “寒いい！” (It’ cold!) Looking at her wardrobe, I tried to offer some fatherly advice by saying, “パンツを履いたほうがいいよ。” (You should be wearing pants!)

She looked at me aghast, and replied, “パンツを履いています。” (I am wearing pants!) It was at this point I realized I had fallen into the “false friends” trap. While in American English “pants” is used for slacks, trousers, jeans, etc., the loan word パンツ (pantsu) was taken from British English, in which it refers to underwear. I had mistakenly accused my student of “cowboying” in a miniskirt in the middle of winter.¹

There have been numerous other linguistic fumbles with my Japanese over the last few decades, and this one probably ranks about third. The other I should probably take to the grave.

My Takeaways

• Spanish taught me that language learning can cause headaches.

• French taught me that some teachers have sick senses of humor.

• Japanese taught me not to trust anything that comes out of my mouth.

I hope your language learning experiences have been better. If not, please do let me know about your own fumbles in the comments. Misery loves company.

So long, farewell, adiós, au revoir, auf wiedersehen, sayonara…

1. For the curious, the loan word for “slacks, jeans, etc” is ズボン (zubon), which seems to come from the French word jupon.