Today, one of the vocabulary words for the 8th graders was “uncle”.
Saying this word caused more giggling that usual amongst the student. I racked my brain. What is wrong with “uncle”?
Then it dawned on me. “Uncle” sounds a bit like “unko.” “Unko” means poop.
Ah, unko!
EDIT: You probably found this post because you ran a search on how to say “uncle” in Japanese. Uncle in japanese is “ojisan” (oh-gee-sahn), not to be confused with grandfather, “ojii-san” (oh-GEE-sahn)
As you know, the only tangible thing you need to qualify for JET is a Bachelor’s degree. In anything. Therefore, not many of us ALTs have degrees in linguistics. Despite this, I am often asked questions about our ridiculously complicated language (I’m happy I was born into it, because it would be a bitch to learn otherwise) that I simply don’t know. I often feel like the mom to the kid who just keeps asking why until the mom breaks down and says “Because I said so!” I call these the “impossible questions.”
Today’s impossible question: Rooren-sensei, how did you learn all the irregular past-tense forms of verbs?
The 1st years (7th-graders) are finally learning about the past tense. They seems to like it so far since it’s a bit more regular than other forms (I cook, he cooks) and doesn’t bother with “am, are, is”. Too bad so many common verbs have an irregular past-tense form (go – went, buy – bought). Hell, I mess up all the time; I tried to use the word “bidded” with my mom yesterday. So, when my JTE asks me how did I learn all these forms, I replied I learned from speaking and being corrected by the adults around me, then refining it in school. The JTE seemed a bit unsatisfied with the answer, saying, “so you have to be taught all this is in school”, indicating we have written drills on past tense or something. I said kind of, but I think most English speakers get it by just using it. Then I mentioned spelling tests, and we spent the rest of the time talking about that.
It is possible I did have drills on irregular past tense form in elementary school that I just blocked out due to trauma. I remember “Daily oral language” being the worst part of my day.
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