English as a Second LanguageG'day.
I watched one of the funniest Japanese TV shows ever today. And Japanese shows are FUNNY.
Ok. So this was in a competitive, game format between two groups.
The object of the game was to cook according to a given recipe. Oh, they also had to go BUY the ingredients that were written on the provided grocery list.
The catch was, everything was written in English.
And they had to decipher what the menu was with their limited English knowledge.
Oh boy. I knew this had to be good.
Alright, so they had to cook...egg rolls. Easy enough if you can follow instructions.
Here we go. Let's start with some of the things on the shopping list.
1. Sake.
I mean, this is a Japanese cognate in the English language (is it official?). The Japanese alcoholic beverage, sake.
However, "sake" (alcohol) is a homonym of "sake" (salmon) in Japanese, minus their slight tonal differences.
So one player initially thought sake was salmon. lawl. That was just dumb.
2. Black mushroom.
a.k.a. Shiitake mushrooms.
I thought this was a slightly poor translating job by the show producer. I hear "shiitake mushroom" in English nowadays, too.
One team purchased regular, brown mushrooms. Their reasoning was, the black mushrooms are not yet in season, thus they are "still" brown. Hahaha!
3. Scallion.
Tricky translation number 2. Scallions, more commonly known as green onions in English.
One team had no idea, so they went with it phonetically.
"'Scallion' sounds...divine. Godly. Dude, just get something that looks godly."
Interesting! I think Japanese possesses certain phonetic "moods." Like, voiced consonants typically sound "negative," and unvoiced sound "positive." Happens to an extent in English, too. To be discussed later.
4. Cellophane noodles.
Do Americans even know what this is? It's called "harusame" in Japanese...it's often used in Chinese cuisine. More commonly known as bean thread? They're thin, transparent noodles.
One team deduced from the cognate "serohann tepu (cellophane tape)," or scotch tape as we would call it, that cellophane must mean "transparent." Correct! Clear noodles=bean thread.
We don't hear cellophane much in conversational English, do we? I knew what it meant from the same inference that these guys used. "Cellophane tape" sounds British to me.
I know for sure that in New Zealand they call scotch tape "sellotape" (Web spell check just didn't correct me... I'm assuming this word exists in American, too?). Sellotape by the Flight of the Conchords. heh.
5. Ground pork.
One team didn't know what "ground" meant. They just got a chunk of pork. A huge one. lawl.
6. Egg roll wrapper.
This one was the funniest. Both teams messed up.
They understood "egg." For one team, that's ALL they understood. So they bought...well, eggs. Hahaha, their reasoning: "Maybe 'egg roll wrapper' is what they actually call tamago in English... 'egg' for short."
The other team got all the pieces...but put them together poorly. "Like, sarann rappu (Saran Wrap)--so something to wrap and roll something with...and it's...egg-colored? Yellow?"
So they bought yuba. FYI that's tofu skin. It's yellow. And it's kinda wrappable. But crispy in its nonperishable form.
And some highlights from the actual cooking process.
Oh, another rule is, they can look up ONE term from the recipe in the dictionary.
Both teams chose: "thicken." Thicken mixture with potato starch.
Looking at that word, one player blurts out: "Sicken? Chicken? (<--can't say "thicken," haha) We didn't buy chicken?" HAHAHA
Another related problem with the infamous "th": Slice black mushrooms thinly.
"What's 'thinly'?"
"Like 'Cindy'?"
"Who's Cindy?"
Another confusion was with the verb "to place." Place mixture in the center of the egg roll wrapper. The team (with the raw eggs) thought of "place" as in the noun, so they reasoned: "Place, like 'promised place,' ya know? I think the Promised Place is the frying pan." So they put the raw eggs in the pan.
And when it said "roll and seal the egg roll wrapper with the filling," that same team scooped the eggs out of the pan, because they confused "seal" with "steal." As for "filling," they took it as "feeling," so they convinced themselves that the recipe instructed them to "feel" the conclusion of the cooking approaching.
Oh goodness.
The result.
The team with the tofu skin got pretty much everything, except, well, the tofu skin. So they got taco-looking egg rolls. heh.
The other team was waaay off, ended up with something like noodle soup with a hunk of pork inside.
Too funny! Oh, the ignorance...
I watched one of the funniest Japanese TV shows ever today. And Japanese shows are FUNNY.
Ok. So this was in a competitive, game format between two groups.
The object of the game was to cook according to a given recipe. Oh, they also had to go BUY the ingredients that were written on the provided grocery list.
The catch was, everything was written in English.
And they had to decipher what the menu was with their limited English knowledge.
Oh boy. I knew this had to be good.
Alright, so they had to cook...egg rolls. Easy enough if you can follow instructions.
Here we go. Let's start with some of the things on the shopping list.
1. Sake.
I mean, this is a Japanese cognate in the English language (is it official?). The Japanese alcoholic beverage, sake.
However, "sake" (alcohol) is a homonym of "sake" (salmon) in Japanese, minus their slight tonal differences.
So one player initially thought sake was salmon. lawl. That was just dumb.
2. Black mushroom.
a.k.a. Shiitake mushrooms.
I thought this was a slightly poor translating job by the show producer. I hear "shiitake mushroom" in English nowadays, too.
One team purchased regular, brown mushrooms. Their reasoning was, the black mushrooms are not yet in season, thus they are "still" brown. Hahaha!
3. Scallion.
Tricky translation number 2. Scallions, more commonly known as green onions in English.
One team had no idea, so they went with it phonetically.
"'Scallion' sounds...divine. Godly. Dude, just get something that looks godly."
Interesting! I think Japanese possesses certain phonetic "moods." Like, voiced consonants typically sound "negative," and unvoiced sound "positive." Happens to an extent in English, too. To be discussed later.
4. Cellophane noodles.
Do Americans even know what this is? It's called "harusame" in Japanese...it's often used in Chinese cuisine. More commonly known as bean thread? They're thin, transparent noodles.
One team deduced from the cognate "serohann tepu (cellophane tape)," or scotch tape as we would call it, that cellophane must mean "transparent." Correct! Clear noodles=bean thread.
We don't hear cellophane much in conversational English, do we? I knew what it meant from the same inference that these guys used. "Cellophane tape" sounds British to me.
I know for sure that in New Zealand they call scotch tape "sellotape" (Web spell check just didn't correct me... I'm assuming this word exists in American, too?). Sellotape by the Flight of the Conchords. heh.
5. Ground pork.
One team didn't know what "ground" meant. They just got a chunk of pork. A huge one. lawl.
6. Egg roll wrapper.
This one was the funniest. Both teams messed up.
They understood "egg." For one team, that's ALL they understood. So they bought...well, eggs. Hahaha, their reasoning: "Maybe 'egg roll wrapper' is what they actually call tamago in English... 'egg' for short."
The other team got all the pieces...but put them together poorly. "Like, sarann rappu (Saran Wrap)--so something to wrap and roll something with...and it's...egg-colored? Yellow?"
So they bought yuba. FYI that's tofu skin. It's yellow. And it's kinda wrappable. But crispy in its nonperishable form.
And some highlights from the actual cooking process.
Oh, another rule is, they can look up ONE term from the recipe in the dictionary.
Both teams chose: "thicken." Thicken mixture with potato starch.
Looking at that word, one player blurts out: "Sicken? Chicken? (<--can't say "thicken," haha) We didn't buy chicken?" HAHAHA
Another related problem with the infamous "th": Slice black mushrooms thinly.
"What's 'thinly'?"
"Like 'Cindy'?"
"Who's Cindy?"
Another confusion was with the verb "to place." Place mixture in the center of the egg roll wrapper. The team (with the raw eggs) thought of "place" as in the noun, so they reasoned: "Place, like 'promised place,' ya know? I think the Promised Place is the frying pan." So they put the raw eggs in the pan.
And when it said "roll and seal the egg roll wrapper with the filling," that same team scooped the eggs out of the pan, because they confused "seal" with "steal." As for "filling," they took it as "feeling," so they convinced themselves that the recipe instructed them to "feel" the conclusion of the cooking approaching.
Oh goodness.
The result.
The team with the tofu skin got pretty much everything, except, well, the tofu skin. So they got taco-looking egg rolls. heh.
The other team was waaay off, ended up with something like noodle soup with a hunk of pork inside.
Too funny! Oh, the ignorance...
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