One of my classes just had their exam to mark the end of the fifth month of English classes. Every exam has a writing topic, some of which are dreadfully boring. But the K5 topic is mildly entertaining in that it serves my vain self-interest: describe your teacher (clothes and appearance); talk about her past, present and future life.
It's an awkward exam to proctor since they keep peering at me, studying my face and clothes while I try to ignore them. They think the more they flatter me, the higher their grade will be. False. Here are the gems:
- In this day she looks fit like be everytime. [Thanks, I do try to stay slim.]
- She is a good teacher, really. [Really?!] She wants to be more good teacher and I think; she is trying for it. [I am. This is true and I'm thrilled you noticed.]
- She don't make up but she looks nice. She isn't tall. She is medium and she isn't fat.
- She has got fire hair (dark yellow). [That would just be bad-ass.]
- She isn't a pants. [Correct. She is a teacher.]
Word travels fast at PEÉ. Students from different classes and across levels are friends. They talk. These students [exam results above] found out weeks ago that I'd hung out with a different class and demanded equal treatment.
"When you finish K6," I told them. "Finish Elementary and we can go somewhere." That was the deal with the other class.
Their ideas for "hanging out" have morphed over the weeks. What started as dinner at a fasıl restaurant [traditional Turkish music] became going to a waterfront cafe and smoking hookah became, most recently, paint-balling. To which I flat out refused. I have to maintain my dignity somehow and running around some field getting shot at by my students isn't the way to do it.
Yobancı Like Me
Tonight I was walking home when I paused for a bus to drive by. A woman standing on my left peered at me and asked in slow, overly-articulated syllables: "Soo-per market?"
"Do you need help in English?" I asked, pulling off my headphones.
Her eyes got wide, her face lit up and she gripped my arm. "Oh bless you! Where are you from?!"
"America."
"Well yeah. Where?"
"California. You?"
"New Jersey."
"Why are you here?"
"Tour." We had a boring conversation not worth recounting. Anyway, I helped her across the street and took her to the soo-per market which was right there but she never would have known it. I didn't bother telling her that no one would have understood her "soo-per market" because it's not a Turkish word. I mean, seriously. What the hell would you do if someone tugged on your sleeve on the sidewalk and clearly enunciated: manav?!??! You'd blink a few times, look at them like they were a fucking crack-pot and walk off, that's what.
2 comments:
Love the sooper-market story, though that might actually work here. Russian has quite a few cognates that make my limited knowledge of the language go quite far!
Those test answers are way funny.
I just got back from a vacation in Nicaragua, where they speak Spanish. I didn't have time to review my Spanish before I went, but I bought a small reference book for common words and phrases. I feel bad for the times that I relied on English instead of trying harder with Spanish. It seems rude, looking back on it. But there were other times where there was nothing I could do but revert to English and hope for the best. You can only fit so many words and phrases in a reference book. Unfortunately, "pasteurized" wasn't one of them.
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