A few days ago, I was quietly reading my novel in the teachers' room at work (My job's real demanding), ignoring the buzz of Japanese conversations around me when my ears suddenly perked up at one word: "supein-go." For you non-Japanese-knowers out there, this word literally means "Spain language," i.e. Spanish. I made the movement that my co-ALT Steven has dubbed "the Golden Retriever," that little upward jerk of the face, eyes wide with complete attention, that is an involuntary reaction to a familiar word heard in the midst of a stream of unfamiliar ones.
Steven, sitting next to me, noticed my sudden movement and looked up too, asking me what had drawn my interest. When I told him, he turned his attention to the conversation (unlike me, he actually knows Japanese), listened for a moment and then, looking even more interested, joined in. I heard him tell the teachers, "Sara also speaks Spanish," so I gave the half-crazed, smiling nod that I can't help doing on the rare occasions that I actually understand something someone has said in Japanese. "Sugoiiiiii!" said the other teachers. (This word is something akin to the English word, "Wow.")
Steven turned to me then and explained that the teachers had been discussing a new student whose parents were Spanish-speakers. It was necessary to send home some forms, but the parents didn't read Japanese, so they were trying to figure out how to communicate the necessary information to them.
"Sara could translate the documents into Spanish," Steven told our colleagues. "Of course, she doesn't read Japanese either..." : (
"But you do, Steven," the teachers replied eagerly.
And so it was decided that Steven would translate the documents into English for me, and I would then translate them into Spanish for the parents. Then, if any reply was made, the whole process would be repeated in reverse. A few minutes later, after we had all returned to our previous activities (or lack thereof), Steven leaned over to me and murmured, "I can't help but feel that this whole thing is like a game of Chinese whispers for the insane." Chinese whispers is what the Brits call the game Telephone. Oh, those Brits and their quaint names for things.
Yesterday morning, we were presented with the documents in question -- one sports club participation form and two letters concerning school lunch payments (thrilling stuff). So we got down to business, Steven making short work of the Japanese to English leg of the journey, and me laboriously transforming the resulting English artifacts into some semblance of comprehensible Spanish. Steven offered the occasional helpful suggestion, such as that I should call the school principal the "tribal chieftain" and refer to monthly school lunch payments as "sacrificial offerings made at the new moon." Eventually (after having to look up an embarrassing number of words), I was able to present the completed documents to the relevant teacher (She threw on some more of what Jerry refers to as "the Sugoi sauce.")
Every time I've seen that particular teacher since then, she has bowed deeply to me and thanked me profusely for my help. The look on her face warms the cockles of my heart. Golly gee, I love learning foreign languages.
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3 comments:
Wow...that's a long route to talk to some kids' family. That's hilarious and awesome at the same time.
That's awesome! and lol at "the sugoi sauce."
What a good laugh. Great story.
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