It’s funny you should mention Spanish. One of my students has just started kindergarten and he has Spanish lessons once a week. No English, just Spanish. His mother is as confused as I am. I could understand a need for Portuguese with so many Brazilians in our area, but Spanish? Apparently he won’t start English until he’s 4 years old.

Am I right in thinking “zone” in Konglish is pronounced “John”?

I’m really enjoying your blog! My mother used to teach Spanish to migrant farmworkers and found a similar problem since many of her students were at totally different proficiency levels…then they’d move on after the season and there would be a whole new “crop” of students.

She also taught Spanish to Japanese students… if you think teaching English to them is funny, try imagining a bunch of high school Japanese girls trying to speak Spanish!

I originally applied for the JET program out of college, but my plans had to change. Do you know of it?

I had a look at the Wikipedia entry for Dunglish. The word Dung means animal excrement, which makes it much funnier than our equivalent Japlish.

It’s amazing to read that English spoken movies aren’t dubbed or subtitled. The Japanese even subtitle their own language just in case someone can’t understand what they are saying!

I would agree that it’s hard for Japanese English students to shake off Japlish, but since most of them aren’t aware that what they are saying isn’t real English, I think they are just confused when we don’t understand them!

In Holland we have our own difficulties with the English language. Up until a few years ago, you would only get two-three hours per week in high school, but at least you’d be taught by someone with a master’s degree in English.

Since the 90’s, most children are first being taught by their primary school teachers, from the age of 10 onwards. This means we have an earlier access to learning English, but not necessarily a better understanding to begin with.

I’m afraid that eventhough my generation is much better educated than my grandparents’ or even my parents’ ( please read), I still make silly mistakes that I won’t notice until a native speaker tells me (but they’re always way too polite to say so).

I wish I’d had a native speaker around to learn from when I was in school. Now it’s so hard to get rid of my Dutch accent and avoid sounding like I just translated something in stead of actually thinking it in English.

I can’t imagine how hard it must be for your Japanese students!