It’s not funny - is it?
I watched an old episode of the sitcom Frasier the other day. In it, Frasier wants to give a speech to his son in Hebrew, but doesn’t know how to because he isn’t Jewish. He enlists a coworker to translate and help him with pronunciation. Later on, the coworker feels slighted, so instead of Hebrew, he translates the speech into Klingon (a fictional alien language from the Star Trek TV show, in case you somehow didn’t know). It all worked out well in the end, but it made me think about similar language tricks.
I’ve met plenty of people who have, as part of their kind language guidance to friends, tried to convince those friends that swear words and insults are merely everyday greetings or useful sentences (”No really, if you say this to that hot girl, they will totally go out with you!”). I’ve never been a fan of this behaviour, but perhaps I’m too sensitive? I don’t think people should be discouraged from learning languages by embarrassing experiences.
What do you think? Have you ever been in one of these situations, either as the trickster or the duped? Is it just a bit of harmless fun, or should people be wholeheartedly supported in their language efforts?
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Adrian Morgan said,
July 23, 2011 @ 5:15 am
I think I agree with you that these kinds of stunts should not be encouraged (even if it really is the height of gullability to think there might be magic words in any language that will make people go out with you). But as long as the person you’ve just sworn at can figure out what’s going on, there’s probably no harm done.
I trust you’ve read the Zompist phrasebook at http://www.zompist.com/phrases.html . . .
(On another subject, I sent you an email a short time ago.)
Wes said,
July 24, 2011 @ 5:07 pm
I played the prankster once on a friend when I introduced my then girlfriend. I told him ‘kann ich haben eine kusse bitte’ was a Swiss greeting… but you know what? It backfired on me, she did! She is now my wife so things worked out well in the end.
Wendy said,
August 1, 2011 @ 6:41 am
Thanks for the comments, guys!
Adrian, thanks for the email, and the link to the Zompist phrasebook. I hadn’t seen it before.
Wes, I’m glad it worked out in the end!
How to say what you’re really thinking | Language Trainers UK Blog said,
August 1, 2011 @ 7:13 am
[...] writing about how I didn’t think it was funny to purposely give people the wrong translation for something, I was linked to the Zompist phrasebook by reader Adrian. I hadn’t heard of the [...]