An Embarrassing Experience of Learning a Foreign Language
13 Comments Published by seserak on Tuesday, August 09, 2005 at 3:29 PM.
It happened whilst I was studying Japanese at a Foreign Language University.It was Tuesday which by schedule was a conversation day, and the new subject was about animal and the sounds of animal. There were eight students in my class, three from Mongolia, two from Romania, one from Hungaria, another one from Philippine, and me from Cambodia. My teacher was asking every student to imitate the sounds of dogs barking in their respective languages.
On that day my eyes were kind of half-shut and half-open, as a result of late night party, chatting and drinking ; that is to say, I wasn’t quite following the teacher. All I heard were “bow-bow," " wow-wow," and "how-how." Those were actually the sounds of dogs barking in Hungarian, Romanian and Mongolian language. Then I heard the teacher said: “…It sounds like 'wan-wan'”. She then turned to me and said, “what does in sound like in your language?”
I caught only her final phrase “wan-wan” which was in fact the sound of Japanese dog makes when it barks, and I had no idea it sounds that way in Japanese. So I assumed she was asking me to pronounced number one in my own language, since "wan-wan" sounded somehow like "one-one."
“It sounds like 'mouy-mouy',” I replied.
“Mouy-mouy?”my teacher mimicked, looking a little surprised and suspicious.
“Are you sure it’s 'Mouy Mouy'?”
"I’m absolutely certain that it’s 'mouy-mouy'," I said.
Although I am a bit sleepy, I still remember my own language perfectly well, I thought.
Then she turned to other students and said,“they bark 'mouy-mouy!" Don’t you think Cambodian dogs are weird? ”
Now you can tell how embarrassed I felt. Of course, the dogs never bark "mouy-mouy." They make the sound " woh-woh," “wow-wow” or “bow-wow” just like Japanese, Romanian or American dogs!
OH be careful next time! Hope u won't confuse from KOK KE KÉ KERT to KAB KAB KAB te na.
Funny enought! *** (three star)
btw where was the place u studied?
Tokyo gaidai? Osaka gaidai? or u just a fiction?
Of course,it did happen.Characters are real;so is the place and the plot.It took place in one of the school you mentioned.
s.o who came to jp in 2002 surely know him ;)
I guess so,
Are you also among the chosen six?
Or are you someone else I know?
hahaha...very funny.
you know what?
quack, quack is the sound the duck makes, but kab, kab is for the way the duck makes the quack, quack sound. Oh, what did I say? Did you get it?
It's great that Cambodia is starting a new beginning!
Then tell me what is that funny story about. I am all ears!
:D
i happen to just found ur Emarrassing Experience. gosh!!!!! that so funny, when the teacher told the other student how weird cambodian dog sound. ha ha ha u made our dogs sound weird.
That was a very funny story. I just came across your blog on a google search. Keep up the blogging! :)
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