Funny or embarassing (teaching) situation with Japanese

[Maciamo]

Here are a few questions that gave way to quite unexpected answers from my students :

Q: What is the tidiest room in your house ?
A: the toilet

Q: Do you know anyone who drinks too much ?
A: my father.
Q: and smokes too much ?
A : my mother.

Q: Let's see if these are facts or opinions : "Japanese food tastes better than English food".
Q : That's a fact !

Q: What's the longest you've been away from home ?
A : 2 weeks
Q : Where was it ?
A : in hospital.

...

I can't think of others right now.

What about you ?

[tokyojoe]

During my student days I taught English to make a quick buck. One student was a young housewife. One day we met up and I asked her what she did last weekend. Her reply was `I had a fight with my husband and ran away from home.` Took me a bit by surprise.

[gomichild]

About 700 years ago when I taught English I was doing a recorded testing and had asked the student where he had been overseas - he listed off a stream of countries - so I asked him which one he liked best. He replied "Holland".

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I love hash..."

[gaijinzilla]

When I used to teach at one of the infamous Big 3 language schools I had one student who had touble pronouncing the word peanuts...it always sounded like he was saying penis as in I like penis butter and jam sandwiches Hey whatever turns your crank!
Two other strange students, oddly enough they belonged to the Maritime Self Defense Force. One of them (this was a private lesson) would do the following: when I would say "Repeat after me" he would do just that..repeat everything I'd say.
ME: OK repeat after me.
HIM: OK repeat after me.
ME: No, no, no
Him: No,no,no
Me: No, don't repeat after me
Him: No, don't repeat after me
This would go on for a while; I began to think that we could take this show on the old vaudeville circuit
The other protector of Japan was in a group lesson and she spoke like a rapper/longshoreman (Yo, teach what's fuckin' happenin'?) she got busted going AWOL twice (but she never missed any of her English classes even when she was AWOL from her base)

[GomiGirl]

One of my good friends is an English teacher and just last week she was telling me about one of her students with whom she has trouble taking seriously.

She tried to engage him in conversation practice but this guys is apparantly as dull as dishwater. He has no hobbies, no life, no job, no education etc.

Here is an example:

Teacher: What is your favourite thing to do on the weekends?
Student: Catch the JR trains around the city,

Teacher: Where do you like to go?
Student: Just around the Yamanote Line.

T: With your friends?
S: No by myself.

T: Do you have any hobbies?
S: Building models of JR trains.

T: What sort of music do you like?
S: My favourite is the station music at Shinjuku Station, but Ikebukero is OK too.

T: eehh What sort of music?
S: The JR train music when the doors are about to close.

At first she thought this guy was just taking the piss from her, but apparantly it is all true - he is obsessed with the JR Yamanote line.

A hobby that is certainly going to send you round the bend.... it takes all sorts.

[cliffy]

I once had seven Chinese workers in a Wharehouse who conned me into teaching them English during the lunch breaks, one of them started it all by asking me if I could explain why the last delivery driver wanted to make love to his vehicle. Yes the driver HAD said that he would fuck the truck right off on the weekend and get another fucking truck that would be good to him for a change, but the guys worked out that to fuck was sex, so the driver had some very serious mechanical fetishes that confused the hell out of them . After I stopped giggling, it took a long time, I explained that, FUCK, in truck driver, could be a Noun, adjative and verb even at the same time. I then had to explain what those words were and it went from there

[cstaylor]

I hoped you didn't teach them how to spell "warehouse"...

...sorry, I had to be a jerk and point that out.

[cliffy]

Never said I could spell, never could probly nevr willll

[Maciamo]

Well, adjative for adjective was the one that caught my attention. Sorry about that mate I guess I must sound strange at times too.

Let's carry on with another story.

I asked a student if she had pets at home. Her answer was : "yes, my husband has two pythons in the appartment" And what do they eat ? "We give them frozen mice"

Well, as I started with the pets, another student had 2 rabbits. She strolled around the streets of Omote-Sando with her bunnies on a lead. I don't know why it reminds me of the "perfume pigs" in Shanghai that have become so fashionable. I guess it's going to reach Japan one day. I'll tell you when I'll have seen my first "pink babe" (waw, fits well for J-girls as well, doesn't it) carried around on a bicycle basket, with a ribbon on the head .

Yet another pass most of her free time playing with her turtle (that occasionally bite her ). She also doesn't seem to have any hobbies or interests. Well at least she learns English and plays with her carapaced friend.

[ronin juku]

When asking a former student what he did for a living,

"I`m an ass worker"

I think he meant to say earth worker, someone that works making roads.Who am I to interfere with pronunciation that has the potential to make the world more amusing?

Save the Ass.
International Ass Day
Greetings from Planet Ass

[GuyJean]

I was teaching a high-level English class, and the topic was father/daughter relationships. After reading an article about daughters in the West and their inability to communicate with their fathers, I asked the students (6 young women) about their relationships with THEIR fathers.

Most said they had NO communication and didn't particularly WANT any. A couple were curious about what kind of work their fathers did. But this one, rather voluptuous, scantily dressed, mid to late 20s J-babe broke from her silence and said,

"I have a great relationship with my father. We take a bath together every night..."

It was our turn for silence..

I could tell by the look on eveyone's faces, bathing with da-da into your 20s was not normal in Japan.. But is it really that abnormal...? (see Question below)

I promptly praised her for her eternal paternal bond and moved on quickly to someone else. As sordid visions danced in my head. (a little WhyWhy for ya)

QUESTION: Recently I've been randomly seeing a show on Japanese TV. I think it's with the comedy team Boots. They watch a father and daughter bathe together. Daughter knows they're being taped, father doesn't. I THINK it's to see how they communicate, but the daughters are 19 years old! Is it NORMAL to bath with your 20 year old daughter in Japan?!

GJ

[cstaylor]

Our neighbors bathe together as a family every night... you can hear them bitching about their day through the window...

[GuyJean]

Our neighbors bathe together as a family every night.

Eeeeeeewwwww!

Could this 'family bathing time' be one of reasons for Japan's infatuation with school girl prostitutes?

I mean, come on.. I saw Morning Musume on TV the other day, singing their cute little hearts out. They were wearing latex, torn miniskirts and tops that I've seen in adult shops..

That whole 'monemu' thing is a little disturbing for me. Some are 19, others are 12.. It's seems too easy for men to bridge that pedophile gap.. Maybe it's just me

Well, at least the bathing families are saving water, communicating, and learning anatomy.. All at the same time! Why can't this efficiency be applied to business?

GJ

[kamome]

That "who bathes with who" thing is pretty disturbing. I once visited a Japanese family who was friendly with my traveling companion at the time. They had an adorable baby that was only a few months old. Seeing how much fun I was having playing with the baby, they offered to let me take a bath WITH the baby. Although it was a nice gesture, I immediately refused. It just seemed inappopropriate for me to bathe with someone else's baby, not to mention my fear of accidentally drowning him in the bath water. Can you imagine allowing a virtual stranger take your own baby into the bath with him unsupervised? Sheesh....

[Crispy]

Those crazy Japanese must actually trust their kids with strangers! Weird...

[SaruDa!]

I think I saw that show where the two daughters were bathing their father. If I remember right, they wanted to have their curfew extended and were sweetening him up. He finally agreed after the show's host pressured him into it. Still very weird that it's not considered taboo.

[American Oyaji]

I've got to get back to Japan