Sunday, April 17, 2011

Me, Tarzan; Make Copy

At first, one of our team members spoke at a normal speed, using vocabulary and our usual language.

Then, the team member tried, slower, and louder.

Then: subject, verb, object.  "We like soup."

Now it's Tarzan-speak.  "Me, two sisters."  "We California."

Also, Koreans want words to end on a vowel and there's no "f" sound, so

"coffee" becomes "copy"  I was wondering why people were always asking if we needed copies of something . . .
"golf"  becomes "golp-u"
"fork" becomes "pork-u"  -  I'm the only one who needs one; the other team members are quite handy with chopsticks.
"each" becomes "each-ee"

"Sh" and "s" sound interchangeable to me, so
"sit here" sometimes sounds like "sh** here"
"city hall" sometimes sounds like "sh**y hall"

I don't know if the Tarzan-speak helps them understand us, but knowing about the other stuff helps us understand them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hilarious!! Have absolutely loved the blog. Everyone at Monterey Pacific Rotary has enjoyed keeping up the your (GSE Team) travels. Keep it coming! Ann Appel

LOLA said...

Ha Ha! I know what you mean. In high school, I worked in a Chinese Restaurant. The Chinese owners called me, Lola, "Rora", and they called rice "lice"...Hmm, they could say their "L's" & "R's" but somehow managed to transpose them. I never understood this...