Wherein I Affectionately Mock My Student's Work

I put together a simply enormous post today at work. Unfortunately because I am an idiot I have left it at work. I shall probably post it tomorrow thought to make up for the missed post on Tuesday.

Until then here's some work my students did recently.

The grammar point my san-nensei have been working on recently is passive sentence construction. The exercise they have been doing is to create their own countries and then tell me what food is eaten in that country, what drinks are drunks, clothes are worn, etc, etc. They can do anything they like but I gave them a hint sheet with some normal and some very odd answers.

Some of the answers were fantastic. For example, most of the boys said that curry was eaten in their country and beer was drunk in their country, a combination that made me feel so much at home. Oddly nearly every single girl opted for orange juice, what they have against tea, beer and wine I don&t know.

But best of all are some of the names for countries they came up with.
Here's a short list.

Ringo-land - No word on whether that's the Beatle or the Japanese word for apple.

Dream-land - Not very funny but I did a count and nearly 18 different kids opted
for Dream-land. I can only assume there is some anime or computer
game with a Dream-land in it.

Never-land - Similarly I lost track of all the Never-lands that I got.

Lucky-land - That's Ireland, surely?

EVA-land - Where dragons are seen apparently, and not angels as one might
expect*

A land - Pragmatical at least.

Star-land - Hollywood right.

Stars-land - Ah, but somebody else went one better.

BIOHAZARD-land - BIOHAZARD is the Japanese game for the computer game we know as
Resident Evil in the U.K. and the States. Although I remember the
first one coming out when I was there age it's still incredibly
popular with my kids. In BIOHAZARD-land Humans are eaten, blood is
drunk, suits are worn, Umbrella events will be held (the villains
in the Resident Evil games are called the Umbrella cooperation),
zombles (bless) are seen and oddly the Olympics were held.

As if BIOHAZARD-land weren't disturbing enough, two different kids
in two separate classes came up with the idea.

Free-land - Where workers control the means of production!

Cat-land - Where people eat dogs.

Special Beautiful Island - Which is extra specially beautiful because we all dress
like pirates.

Beautiful-land - Sure it's beautiful, but it isn't special beautiful is it.

Atari-land - Finally, a country where I can be free to enjoy classic 80's
gaming.

Smile-land - I don't think I'd fit in there.

Future-land - Welcome! To the world of tomorrow!

Disney-land
Disney-sea
Disney-rina - They're taking over the world!

Silent Hill - Apparently kangaroos are seen in Silent Hill. Now I don't remember
any kangaroos but I do know about the evil nurses.




Scary-land - Sure they eat humans there and drink blood but how scary can it be
without evil nurses.

Tea-land - This sounds like my kind of place.

Japon - Bad spelling or deliberate humour, how would you mark it?

Peace-land - Peace-land apparently has dinosaurs and wrestling. I propose it's
name be changed to awesome ruckus world.

Interesting-land - Ironically this sheet was otherwise very boring.

Ultra-land - Well that's what I interpreted it as. The kid actually wrote Uruta-
land, which I initially read as Urethra-land because I have a sick,
sick mind.

and finally.

THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT

STEAK IS EATEN IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT

BEER IS DRUNK IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT

LEATHER JACKETS AND LEATHER PANTS ARE WORN IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT

TANKS ARE SEEN IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT

THE WARS WERE HELD IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT

THE VERY BIG WARDS WILL BE HELD IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT

I have no idea what game or tv show the front of armament is from but there is no way the kid made it up on his own. He actually wrote it like that as well, all in caps with no punctuation. Of course I had to mark him down for that but I really, really didn't want to because THE VERY BIG WARS made me piss myself.



You want some more, okay how about this.



This is Edo Harumi. Edo Harumi is a Japanese comedian. Like all Japanese comedians she doesn't so much tell jokes or make observations as do vaguely humorous routines with a sort of catchphrase gimmick. In her case she sticks out her thumb and says goo like a baby. This actually means "good." Basically her whole routine is based around taking the piss out of English language teachers and the use of the English language in Japan. A lot of her mannerisms are based aroudn Japanese teachers of English, and you can take it fron me she's spot on. Her other big joke is to take an -ing word in English and turn it into -ingoo i.e. hop, step, jumpingoo. This is a reference to how Japanese people speak English. See the Japanese language is entirely phonetic and all it's letters (except n) can only be pronounced with an associated vowel sound. So in Japan there is a separate letter for ga, ge, gu, gi and go. If faced with an English word that ends in a consonant the natural thing to do is to turn it into a phenom they're comfortable with, hence nearly all my students call me Adamu because they struggle to say Adam.

Yeah I know, not exactly side splitting stuff but she is one of the few Japanese comedians that actually does make me laugh and I figured I'd post some Japanese humour I appreciate for a change. That and her song to the tune of "My Sherona" is one of the catchiest things I have ever heard and I no longer want to suffer alone.

Still not enough.

Okay, how about human tetris.



Alright not quite human tetris, but still bloody amazing.

Still not enough?



How about the finest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

Well that should satiate you until tomorrow. However despite the fact that it has nothing to do with Japan or this blog I still want to post this video because it makes me giggle outrageously.