On the whole, my students are really pretty intelligent, and are all much better at English than I am at Spanish. However, sometimes we all struggle with translations. For instance, today one of my students asked me another way to say "bald." We'd been talking in class about how we should be polite with the things we write about people, and that sometimes our descriptions of others, even though we don't mean them to be rude, may include things the other person wouldn't like. So this student asked me if he could say "bald."
"I mean, Teacher, how else can I say it? He doesn't have much hair? His hair is unavailable?"
"Yes," I wanted to tell him. "Just like that. It makes it sound like you're saying his hair can't come to the phone right now, because it's currently unavailable."
I may not have told him exactly that, but he thought it was a pretty good joke when I explained why I was laughing. Good times in Costa Rica!
There used to be a TV talk show with a segment called "Kids say the darndest things". The TV personality, Art Linkletter, would talk to kids that were always precocious and said clever things. Your blog entry reminded me of the show.
ReplyDeleteYes, I know the show. Bill Cosby was the host when I saw it, though. Is it still on TV?
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