Original Gaijin Smash Content
There a girl among the ninensei students at one of my schools that I've really taken a liking to. She always tries her best to speak to me in English. Her English isn't the best around, not by far. But she always tries, and that's a huge plus in my book. She makes a lot of mistakes, but it's usually pretty cute, like forgetting or misprouncing a word or leaving out entire parts of the sentence.
So imagine my surprise when she comes up to me one day in the library and says, out of nowhere, "Goddamned son of a bitch!" With a gleeful smile, no less.
...Wha?
Ok, where in the hell did she get this from? I KNOW it wasn't from me. Last I checked, it wasn't in the textbooks either. Well, that leaves only a few options left...
1. She's been watching the English version of 24, which is in Japan. Possible.
2. She's been listening to some gansta rap. But this isn't the Ghetto School, so I really had no reason to believe that this cute, smiling 14 year old Japanese girl was listening to Juvenile, 50 Cent, Twista, or whatever the kids are into these days. Besides, if it had been gansta rap, wouldn't she have said "motherfucker" instead? Ah, it's a wonderful world we live in.
3. She'd gotten ahold of another one of those lovely "colloquial" English books.
The correct answer turned out to be 3, as she produced the book, and the page on which "Goddamned son of a bitch!" was located. The girl has a somewhat concerned look on her face. "Did I get the prounciation right? Did I surprise you?"
Understatement, meet Japanese schoolgirl. Charmed, I'm sure.
Her prounciation was actually decent (am I supposed to compliment this?), but I told her to please, never ever use those words again. She thumbed through the book to find some more "everyday" English... a lot of it was actually normal ("Man, I'm starving today!"), some of it was downright strange ("I need an ambulance, my leg's been cut off" - this is everyday English?!) and some of it was again vulgar ("What a jackass!"). Suddenly my teacher's "Hasta la vista, baby" doesn't seem so weird anymore.
I asked where she picked up this book, and she told me she'd got it from right here in the school library. No. I expressed my disbelief, and she showed me the shelf from which she'd taken it. Sure enough, there was a missing gap just about the size of the book in question. That's just...incredible. I wish my school library had books that would teach me how to say "Goddamned son of a bitch!" in a foreign language. All we ever did was rifle though old National Geographic's in the hopes of uncovering some saggy, uncovered tribal tits. What REALLY amazes me though is these books - who makes these things? How do you go about making a "Conversational English" book and then be like, "Oh yeah, don't forget 'Goddamned son of a bitch!' Oh, and 'I need an ambulance, my leg's been cut off' is essential too?" I just don't get it.
Furthermore, how do I get in on this business?
Most Japanese people learn English for at least 6 years. Some of them have at least basic conversational abilities, but very few actually have the confidence to try it out on a real live foreigner. Maybe that's a good thing. If you are ever touring around in Japan, and you pull some random schoolgirl aside to ask for directions to a temple or some such thing, you just might get an answer in the form of "take a left at the next street you rancid piece of shit." I don't know about you, but if this ever happened to me (and I hadn't been properly prepared for it as I am now), I think I would just fall over brain-dead trying to compute what had just happened.
I mean, how many times in one's life will you have a cute 14-year old Japanese girl casually stroll up to you and say "Goddamned son of a bitch!" I feel kinda special.
Yay, the first new one in a long time! :)
Glad to see you've got enough time to write new stuff now. :)
My initial thought was that it Miss Americanized, but again, wrong school. I just await the day Ultimate Sweetness finds one of these books. I'd be able to find bits of your brain all the way over here after /that/ explosion O_o
"all we ever did was rifle though old National Geographic's in the hopes of uncovering some saggy, uncovered tribal tits", I could read your stuff for days.
Ya I learnt French for like 6 years and was no more fluent in it than a dog is in english. Give the girl some credit, at least she can hold a conversation.
Ah. The holy grail. New stuff. Funny new stuff.
Just Gaijin Smash your way into a publisher's office with a bunch of comments on your editorials.
I grew up in Russia and moved to the States about a decade ago, but right after the Soviet Union fell, there were a bunch of "colloquial" English books there too. Which my friends and I studied. I wish I had one of them here now, to test it out now that I actually speak English...
This is some funny shit as always. It's one of those new articles that you didn't add the first time around right? It's so funny, keep it up.
some of it was downright strange ("I need an ambulance, my leg's been cut off" - this is everyday English?!)
my favorite part
Hey good to see another JET here in Japan. And yes, those books are all over the place. While I haven't been called a SOB yet, i've been called a few other things.
If your leg's been cut off, do you really need to ask for an ambulance? Shouldn't an ambulance just happen at that point, without having to ask a passerby for assistance? Also, new story! Hooray!
Yo, so glad you finally got time to put up new content. In fact, your blogs has given me the inspiration to take Japanese classes and to try to give the JET Programme a shot, since im done with college after this summer and dont really have a career plan as of yet. I really hope I get it. Anyways, are you goin to put up the rest of your old blogs up someday. Well, keep it up and I look forward to your future stories.
When I was travelling in Italy, a guy on the train wanted to test out his English. He kept telling me "You are dog." and then he would laugh hysterically. Now I wonder if he had one of these books...
Wow. I'm glad to have found this site. I'm doing something similar in a few months, picking up and heading to Osaka to teach at a Japanese private school. This blog/journal is like a very detailed and vivid 'heads up'. I'll definitely be around to read more.
Peace.
Oh, man, those books...
My Japanese classmates gave me one once, but warned me not to use any of the Japanese in it, since it was all really old. I assured them that the English expressions were equally outdated.
I'm cleaning out my closet, so here's hoping I find it.
Great to see you back on the world-wide cobweb.
I can't remember how I stumbled across your diary on Outpost 9, but it has kept me entertained for ages. I'm too old to apply for JET, and the thought of getting "kancho"ed by some little arsehole less fills me with dread, but I'd still love to go over to Japan and China for a couple of years teaching English.
I guess those sorts of things are universal... I still remember one of those translations from my Japanese workbooks that came out to be "Is it a head?" Somehow I just can't figure out how you'd use that in daily life.
You brightened a dim morning. Thanks Az!
When I was in German class in high school, all the books were new but extremely outdated. Some of the sample conversations were talking about how cool the band Scorpions was and other mostly extinct bands. In the interest of learning some up to date slang and more importantly a way to insult people, I too found one of those books. The only problem was that much like english slang, it didn't make any sense even with a book telling you it was correct. If I remember correctly the German equivelent of "I need to take a piss" was something like "I'm going to go throw a water stick in the corner".
wooohoooot new stuff AND saggy tits what more could anyone want
I had a French phrasebook, and my two favorite phrases from it were "That man is following me" and "Stop following me!" That's some good shit. XD
Lmfao, that kicks ass! Like others have said, great to see that you can put up some new content again!
goddamned son of a bitch? does anyone really say that? that's an interesting book though, i should pick one up.
oh, i really love your articles! i'd have given anything to see that girl say that, heh.
the thing about japan is they really need to rework their system of learning english.
Belatedly:
Why not? After all, the first thing you need to know in a foreign language (after asking where the bathroom is and understanding the answer) is how to curse someone out. These things are important.
Though if I have to tell people my leg's been cut off, my next vacation is going to be somewhere where the people are a tad more observant.
i bet they only make things like that in those books just to see how many people they can make shit themselves to death. or just die from shock.
Hey man!!! nice to see you can write again, you have save me from many bored afternoons in the office :D, Keep up the good work! And if i travel to japan some day i hope you can guide me and show the real japan xDDDDD
thank god I never found one of those books when I was on elementary school and was just starting to learn how to articulate real conversations....
This isn't a new editorial. It was on Outpost Nine.
Actually, it is new. I reread through the Outpost Nine files (the attempt in fixing grammar in the editorials here ended up in making more grammar mistakes imo...) and this definately isn't in there.
The first day I was in Osaka, the Japanese man sitting next to me in the hotel suddenly turned around and asked me how old I was in English. His accent was so thick I could barely understand it, and when I answered he didn't understand either until I translated it into Japanese. Then he asked me where I was from, didn't understand the concept of states, and left me alone once we'd gotten "Amerikajin desu" established. I just thought it was funny he wanted to practice his English on me... a little teenage girl, of all people... I certainly wasn't the only gaijin in the room!
But it was quite... enjoyable!
"goddamned son of a bitch? does anyone really say that?"
I say that quite frequently, actually, but usually only while driving. And it has sort of e(de?)volved into "motherless son of a whore" thanks to having watched Firefly/Serenity a few too many times...
man, i'm lucky that here in Brazil we only learned how to say "the boy is between the cars" and "there is a cow"!
If a cute japanese girl said "Goddamned son of a bitch!" to me, i'll be like WTF? and lmao!!
Oh dear sweet zombie jesus, I actually had tears running down my face reading this. The whole office thinks I've gone hysterical. Thanks for making my day :p
Gem
Well, I'm German, and when I was 15 or 16 or so, my parents gave me a book with vulgar and dirty words and phrases in English for Xmas or my birthday or whatever it was. I still own that book, I learned a lot from it.
Wonder if its one of those Motean books
I have to say that I've had a lil' 14 year-old japanese girl walk up to me and say that TWICE...but it was the same girl and her step-brother told her to say it to me.
My friend teaches at a junior high school that has rape porn in its library. And this is in a quaint little countryside town.