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January 28, 2005
Lost in Translation
After over six weeks of vacation and absence, I finally headed back yesterday to the inner-city elementary school where I tutor. It was so great to get back around kids; despite being an education grad student, I'm actually around children very little.
Here are some things I heard from the kids I worked with yesterday. Where needed, I have provided a translation. Please realize that I am in no way poking fun at any particular race or ethnic group. For those people not commonly around different races of children in an inner-city school, I am translating because some children use a different dialect from my own.
"Oops...I pooked [puked] a little bit in my mouth then it went back down into my tummy." (Kemaya, kindergarten)
"Doo, dis getti tuper good." ("Dude, this spaghetti is super good." Travis, kindergarten--has a bit of a speech problem)
"Hey, Bradison, you're wearing my shoes." (Raphael, third grade. There are two boys in one of my classes with identical shoes. It's kind of a standing joke between the two.)
"Are we gonna...are we gonna...are we gonna play that game where we find the cards that have the same letters but one is in upper case and then say what the letter is and then say what sound it is and then point to it on the letter board and then if we get all of it right we get to keep the cards and if I get the most cards then I win and get a high-five from you?" (Emmanuel-Garcia, first grade)
"Gwok! Blaygee gwok!" (No translation available. DeLaMonte', preschool)
"Man, them orange crackers make me have to use it!!" (Kortavius, second grade. "Have to use it" means "needs to use the bathroom.")
"There was my brother, and he was real mean to me, so one day I went up to him and I pushed him in the mud and then I sat on his head and I farted and he cried." (Dayzhona, first grade.)
And just for my readers who esteem me for my snot stories:
In the preschool class, the kids were using ice cubes to "paint" with the generic brand of Kool-Aid drink powder. One of the little guys discovered that he could lick his ice cube and it would taste like Kool-Aid. He did this so often (the teacher didn't have a problem with it) that he got the Kool-Aid up his nose. I could tell he was uncomfortable, but I figured he would go get a tissue if he was that miserable. He got up from his chair, came toward me and pointed to his nose, and then proceeded to bury his face in my sleeve and blow his nose as hard as possible. Therefore, I ended up with a crusty patch on my sweatshirt that was purple and smelled strangely like grape...
Posted by Anna at January 28, 2005 11:25 AM
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Comments
Anna,
First of all, I must admit that the way Emmanuel talks is exactly how I find myself communicating very often. A whole slew of words within one breath is very common to me and my speech. Kortavius...oh my goodness! I heard that expression at least one hundred times when we were on mission trip in Houston and I taught the Pre-K and Kindergarten VBS class, so I have become very familiar with it. In fact, my family adopted that phrase for some time and my mom occasionally slips it into conversation. Thanks for the laughs!!
Posted by: Kendall at January 28, 2005 12:10 PM
Finally some snot! :D
And that card game sounds great! Emmanuel-Garcia obviously has got the hang of it :D
Posted by: Flip at January 29, 2005 04:43 PM