Sho mo nai!

Eigo benron taikai

This is from a comment I posted on another person's blog:

This year the english level of the kids at my (45 student) JHS is lower than the past two years, but the class is larger so there are four kids doing the contest instead of just two. I got them all to try to translate their speeches themselves first, and then I took their japanese versions and their english versions and tried to make their english say what they said in Japanese, and have it be understandible as well. With one of the four I just had to rearrange a lot and add the right connecting words. With two of them it was more effort intensive. With those three I showed them the marked up and corrected versions of their english and japanese, explained what I changed and why, and then gave them a typed out version with the odd option (like a choice between "knowledge" or "understanding") that they could pick between for what was easier to say and understand. The fourth kid is doing it because his mom is forcing him and because his two older sisters were 英語天才eigo　tensai. His attempt at the English version was comparable to an internet translator and I fear that the final version was nearly all my own English. I told him to try it and if there was anything he didn't understand he should ask me... I guess we'll see how it goes when it comes to actually reciting.

posted by Fletcher @ 9:09 p.m.