Wednesday, August 26, 2009
"Slip Carefully!"
Want to add some hilarity to your level-appropriate language lessons? You might consider using such "bad English" examples as found in exotic lands. For example, students with the correct understanding of the function of an adverb would not resist a laughter inspired by "Slip Carefully!" written on a sign on a wet floor in Shanghai, China. I know we discussed the topic several months ago, but do you have more funny examples like this that can be good resources for teaching grammar points, collocation, sentence patterns, vocabulary, etc.?
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2 comments:
I was able to get in contact with a former colleague I taught with at Yantai University in Shandong. She is now teaching at University of Arkansas in the IEP program. She made collecting the interesting English we encountered an art. Here are some of the examples she reminded me of in her email:
Shayna Sessler wrote:
Notebook cover: "A fiend should bear his friend's infirmities. Good company on the road is the shortest cut."
Stationery: "Ture Love / There's songbird on / my pillow icon see the fun in"
Package of gummy candy: "Its translucent color so alluring and taste and aroma so gentle and mellow offer admiring feelings of a graceful lady. Enjoy soft and juicy Kasugai Muscat Gummy."
Bookmark featuring a graphic of a cartoon pig wearing a diaper: "AUTUMN / On the night / that the angel fell, / the infinite star / were twinkling brightly / to welcome santa's arrival."
(I lack the words to express the absurdity of all those images together: pig, diaper, autumn, angels, and Santa...)
Stationery envelope with a graphic of a little girl with angel's wings: "Hormony with Love / I have dreams and hopes, / I feel happiness. I'm a fairty in love."
...and last but not least, remember the pencil box with the inside compartment bearing the slogan, "If loneliness were a grape"?
I will post images when Shayna is able to send them. They really are treasures.
Katrina
I bet a lot of these are direct, word-for-word translations from the first language.
Lee
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