Teaching Thoughts | Martin O Regan

Holnap és hónap Nagy iX

Posted on June 21, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

What did the orange say to the apple at bedtime?
Sweet dreams.
Maybe it could work as a joke. Perhaps it should be a sour cherry talking to a normal cherry, or even the other way around for a piss-take. Am I making any sense?
Let’s go back to the beginning.
Fábry: Ferihegy! Ki a Feri és hol van a hegy?
It was the first Hungarian joke I got and while Fábry may have his detractors, he remains for me the bridge to Hungarian humor. Again, I imagine, many Hungarians clambering to assure me that this is not the quintessence of Hungarian wit and while I’m sure it’s not, as a foreigner getting a joke in the target language (however basic and unsophisticated…yawn) is the greater achievement. And listen maybe I am a paraszt in the Hungarian derogatory sense. Yokel, slack-jaw, redneck…you choose. I don’t quite get the Little Aggressive Pig jokes. I’m merely of the opinion that that tool is a twat and he reminds too much of somebody unpleasant. Maybe this is the point… Maybe I’m still in the dark.
Anyway, why I brought up the original orange and apple “joke” was because years ago after drinking cider with my brother-in-common-law, I later texted him Szép alma-kat. He got it, and I had achieved a result, an originally coined joke in the target language. As for Fábry, feck* that bunkó ember 😁.
Now, trying the joke in Hungarian I might have said:
Mit mondott a narancs az almának a lefekvés ideje előtt (Google translate helped me)?
Szép almákat.
If you are Hungarian and you’re not laughing, you’re humourless, or worse you’re racist! (Didn’t say I was going to box fair now, did I?😁)
Conclusion: As a teacher, going the road of teaching jokes is dark and dangerous and only few of your charges will ever understand, or worse, pretend to.
As a student, be prepared for the fact that your joke is only funny to other target language as a foreign language learners. The native may be forever left flummoxed. Don’t try to over-explain it. That just leads to embarrassment, or worse, anger and murderous rage. Well, hopefully that last part is an example of exaggeration.
Conclusion on the conclusion: As a teacher stick to the slapstick and if people insist on its base essence remind them of the comic genius of Charlie Chaplin, and be prepared to throw them an Andy Kauffman curveball (or Andy’s equivalent in your native tongue).
And remember, teach like you want to not like you have to.

Holnap és hónap to the nines

Posted on June 1, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

“I’m off to the Skyshop*” he announced.
Well, he could have said he was off to burn some shop too, but I was left none the wiser with that unconsoling thought.
“Okay” I replied meekly, afraid of being too non-committal. Maybe this was a desperate admission by a man who needed help from his friends, but this time at least he was going to have to get by without my little contribution.
He paused.
Shit
“ Aren’t you even a little curious?” he asked.
I met his searching gaze with an attempt at a blasé expression.
He laughed.
I was undone.
“Well, I’m off then.”
“Alright then” trying to muster up some feigned notion of courage.
Again he laughed, rather bellowed actually.
“See you some day then…and don’t let them catch you hanging around…or they’ll crucify you upside down.”
The smile washed from his face as he uttered these last words.
Always prophetic, I now took his words to heart.
“You’ll be alright” and with that he was gone.
“Jesus” I ventured into the void but he was gone, back to his father’s kingdom I suppose.
Sons of God, huh. Contrary folk at the best of times.
“Peter!” a voice beckoning from the nearby taverna.
“Alright Mary.”
Mothers of God. Impatient at the best of times.
*Égbolt

Holnap és hónap D Ate

Posted on May 25, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

To render or not to render, that is the question.
But to use it exclusively to mean to represent or depict artistically is to render all other definitions null and void, or to at least unwittingly to narrow ones scope of understanding.
So when a student, an architect, speaks of rendering, I can assume they are implying the artistic definition but when I try to explain its meaning elsewhere and have my word fobbed off as redundant, I am surely allowed to grow annoyed. But of course that is the teacher’s lot.
“That’s funny.”
“No it’s not!”
But I meant funny strange not funny ha ha.
Or when applying the abbreviated “ ‘morning” as a greeting and being met with the reply “Yes, it is” which with the right tone could be meant as a light-hearted joke, but with the obnoxious intent to dismiss the greeting as irrelevant noise, again the heckles rise up.
And then there’s bitch: it has more than one meaning as a noun so learn those other meanings please!
Well, that’s me done. Another day, another bitching session.

Holnap és hónap Hé7

Posted on May 18, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

With the shades drawn and his shades on, Mr. Shadow looked even shadier in the shadowy room. Suddenly the shadows of The Shades danced along the shades as the shades, whom I had called, arrived full beams glaring, trying to penetrate the shades to find the shady Mr. Shadow who was now trying to find within the shadows of this shadowy room a place to hide himself from The Shades therein approaching.

Whether or not the fate of Mr. Shadow concerns you, it is the very differences in the meaning of the word Shade which I’ve been focusing on this week. Well, when I say this week, I mean this morning. A question put to me, an answer given. In the end I kept my explanation to a minimum and I sure as hell didn’t include all the alternatives I have here. Imagine inviting that tropical thunder into your day.

As it stands, and as I sit here writing this, my students left still a little in the dark, perhaps I should say in the shade, but that itself may depend on how dark it was within their English weary minds, life rolls ever onwards, mysteries at every turn on this long, dark, windy, shady road.

Share or Shadow

Some explanations of shade/Shadow as used in the italicised text:

Curtains
sunglasses
More suspicious
Room full of Shadows
The Police: slang. Capitalised for the sake of the specific group who had arrived
The police: uncapitalised for the general call for help

Holnap és hónap the fifth

Posted on April 20, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Today I’m only concerned about English (perhaps more immediately about my swipe text functioning) and the awkwardness therein. Explaining the nuanced differences between awkward, inconvenient, and uncomfortable when they all can be found translated as Kényelmetlen presented a significant difficulty this week. My rendering of an explanation could fall into Awkward as I realised I had taken the differences for granted, Inconvenient because I could see my Lesson Plan Timing slipping away, and even Uncomfortable as I witnessed the contortions to confusion on my students’ faces. Even now I’m pressed to feel confident about these and not possible alternative usages. Use or usage? Don’t get me started: it always takes that sample of phrases to get me back on track. I rarely use use so its use is rare, but the usage of usage demands confidence from the user, especially the teacher, in case its usage is incorrect. Phew! And well then there’s “its” which the swipe text just can’t handle. It’s easy but… Why? Or why not? “Dan’s dog lifts its leg”. In as much as I know it’s not “Dan is Dog…” I’m sure I could figure out that it wouldn’t be “ … it is leg.” if it happened to be written “… it’s leg.” Ah well. And have I mentioned that I don’t like to distinguish or fall into cyclical explanation when it comes to how words are used specially especially in given contexts. Am I back to the beginning? Honestly I don’t even know if I’ve begun yet. Afterall, this was to be nothing about what it has become to be about. All I wanted to ponder on is why days of the week are capitalised, e.g. Monday , months of the year, e.g. January, but not the seasons, except when personified!?!?! Watafuh?!? Anyway, in my role as sole protector of decency in English I will commit to the opinion that the non-capitalisation of the seasons is complete bollocks and I shall forever more remain a staunch supporter of said capitalisation. If you happen to be a student of mine, it might be worth noting my preferred usage, especially on those less optimistic Winters’ Days.

Holnap és hónap squared

Posted on March 23, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Holnap és hónap squaredl
We could all ascribe word play to any nuance of the language we so wished but in so doing we may risk being misunderstood, or worse being arrogant enough to think we should have been understood. For learners of a foreign language, the vaguely familiar becomes something of a beacon and so it is understandable that we begin to see a logic, a connection, where in reality there isn’t. For example, tomorrow isn’t a toast to Morrow and yet poetic and archaic, morrow still means tomorrow, therefore at least there is an idea to it having meaning, ie making sense. But there are no divisive women in Mérnök, even If to an outsider it’s all just a matter of time: time in this case being the length of time given to the vowel sound Ö , not Ő. Same thing isn’t it. It’s just another funny looking O. Blah, blah, blah. It is, get over it! (Oh, don’t you just hate it when foreigners try to tell you what’s what concerning your own language, well, the language you learnt to speak first, your mother tongue, even if you were snatched from your mother’s arms at birth and raised solely by your father. Many cans of worms could be opened up here, but really, who in their right mind would even want to bother!)
When I think of csizma, rather when I hear it, I’m immediately drawn to the notion of a request for cheese as directed at one’s mother. Then when I playfully rehash it as sajtanya, I get queer looks or prolonged groans. It really isn’t funny, they’re saying, but maybe I don’t want it to be funny. Maybe I was trying to be creative with the language in a way a native never thinks to do. Of course, a Hungarian who knows no English is very much entitled to tilt the head from side to side in incomprehension, but one would at least like the more proficient speakers to accept the foreigners’ input. “We would never say that” Who’s that WE? I have a Hungarian poet friend who probably would, and probably has. Maybe WE is restricted to terribly unimaginative people, or maybe that’s just my way of getting people to come over to my side. Insulting people for their beliefs in the hope of changing their minds, or at least silencing them, is all the rage these days. “Deplorables, I tell ya. Deplorables!”

Holnap és hónap a harmadik

Posted on March 16, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Seeing then that words are oft times mispronounced, misheard, misunderstood, or mistaken for other words, even among natives of the mother tongue, is it any wonder then that foreigners to the tongue arrive at unforeseeable difficulties and, more appropriately, adapt to its nuances, perhaps even adopting some of the idiosyncrasies associated with other learners of the language. There’s safety in numbers so they say.
Has this ever been truly hammered out in diplomacy? Have studies been undertaken to the degree that there is no possibility that some trade deals have collapsed not because of stubbornness or foolhardiness but rather because of mere misinterpretation? Not just that old claptrappery of lost in translation but rather just lost, full stop. For want of a word the kingdom was lost.
But now that’s another thing: where we see the division is not always where it should be, even if it makes sense. King-dom is clear even if in these nomenclatural times the UQ would be more appropriate , or is that already so 20th century! The United Gender-non-specific-dom? Too much even in these effervescent times? Yet it’s the words that can be broken up differently and still contain meaning; these are the ones that can lead to new perspectives the point of view of the native speakers. Others hold the same sound in the target language but often with quite different definitions.

Holnap és hónap kettő

Posted on March 9, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

So if you’re to look at words with the foreign eye you might be tempted to see some familiarity, even order. As a child learning to spell, the word together was always broken up into the sum of its parts, to-get-her, and though I never did find out if anyone ever did get her, or for that matter why she needed to be got, it helped me to remember. But in the world of foreign languages sometimes the familiar can have unforeseen, dare I say, deadly consequences. Now if you get to feeling a tad sheepish because you said you’re pregnant instead of embarrassed (the Spanish word embarazada means pregnant), it mightn’t amount to anything more than a knowing giggle, but perhaps you’re trying to flex your health food savvy in France and think that asking if the relevant food contains preservatives is a good idea, just remember that the French word Préservatif means something ever so slightly different.
As for together, I later learnt that the root is more to do with to gather, which makes perfect sense if you consider the full meaning of both words. That still doesn’t help me with spelling and therefore she will forever more be bound to the pursuit, inextricably linked to the getter in the equation.

Holnap és hónap

Posted on March 2, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Holnap és hónap Part 1: The Digression
One up road, I’m sorry to say, does not sound like van apród, at least not to a native English speaker. We make a distinction, you see, between the V and the W (among other things). In Hiberno-English, or as it’s more broadly known, Irish English ( not Irish by the way, that’s Gaelic) this is even further exacerbated when you take into consideration the pronunciation of Up. No way the ‘ap’ in apród is going to sound anything like up, and don’t bother with the “but that’s how it is in British English” British English, otherwise known as RP, or Received Pronunciation, is a fabricated nonsense of ye old British colonialism, and should therefore have no place within the language learning classroom, and even where you may argue towards a model, and RP is convenient Cos of all those dictionaries and things, it still isn’t the De Facto English. It’s something but it isn’t the be all and end all. If you’ve learnt English that way, you’ve learnt nothing (martin@thehairyteacher.com for lessons to set you back on the path to real knowledge). But even when you take RP into consideration the V/W distinction is glaring, yes glaring, so a Wet Vet isn’t a stutter, it’s an uncomfortable condition. A Volkswagen beetle isn’t a Folksvagen because as English speakers we don’t give a toss about how the Germans say it. Protest all ye want, but if you are one of the ones arguing for RP then suck on the tail pipe of this reality: English is the Germanic dialect come home to bite the hand that nurtured it. From an alternative dialectical position RP doesn’t warrant the respect you’d extend it, so if you’ve ever argued in its favour but fight vehemently for the right of Germans to say F for their V and V for their W, that’s all well and good (in fact I agree as it’s their language) but you’re only contradicting yourself. RP is RP because of arrogance and prestige, in as much as mispronunciation of other people’s language is the privilege of that same class of people. Call it ignorance when the working class holiday in your pubs and on your beaches and yet label it eccentricity when it’s hob nobs in your five star hotels, finger fooding in your diplomatic circles, or basically expecting you to bow to their every need, even if it’s in your own country. The Queen came to Cork, but the Fishmonger stole the day. You see, that’s the Corkonian way.
Before I digress let me return to the beginning and, whether you have change or not, let me just make it clear. In English, any English, Van (The Hungarian word) never sounds like One (the English word) but if it ever becomes accepted as the standard Pronunciation I may by a conservatism borne of age, protest, but in my Irish heart I’ll also delight at the notion that napról napra the English are losing control of their language. As an English teacher I can only hope that I’LL stay favourably ahead of the trends, or at least not lag too far behind. Van Apród, One Up Road…I get. A student dealing with difference needs to draw some familiarity and that’s why in this Snowday I’ll never dwell too much on the Whereday even less on the supposed error as English speakers and learners alike may have spotted in that preposition.

A letter to any listener

Posted on December 18, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Hi there

How are you? How’s tricks? How’s the family, or not? How now brown cow! Any news? Well, apart from the usual nonsense…

[Blah blah blah]

Anyway, as for the teaching regulations I seem to have avoided their web for another while and am still in the white as far as invoicing goes but it’s becoming more and more difficult. If the companies are spooked then rather than jump through the legal hoops they’ll just jump ship. As far back as 2011 there was a change in the law which meant that companies to whom I issued invoices had to cover my health insurance payments. A funny thing about it was that in some cases this seemed not to be true, while others, believing the initial rumours, wanted instead to pay me in black. Two years on the companies that stayed with me have had no trouble so whatever shadow had passed over in those dark ’11s had dissipated…only to loom much larger as of Sept 1st this year…when, indeed, the law stated much more specifically that people of my disposition, the idiots-for-honesty, were most definitely dis-entitled to issue invoices with the trademark “nyelvoktatás” code. Instead in a frantic scramble for legitimacy another existing code was sought out and came in the guise of “egyéb oktatás”. That there is a clear distinction between the two is obvious in the way of spelling, and may even be supported semantically, but to say that what I actually do has gone from being “language” teaching to “other” rings of something sinister. I see myself in a coutroom some time down the line pleading innocence in the light of allegations of some newly contrived perversion as distinguished by an ever-enlightening-ruling-elite (the word government ringing too much of communist ideologies by that time). That my case will hinge on the ominous term “other education” will certainly be my downfall and as I am dragged away by my oppressors I will rage loudly and invoke the honest Hungarians now resident in Slovakia (and other Trianon treated regions) who at once in a darker past woke one morning to find themselves strangers in a strange land, and note that in my own demise I may take heart that I am not alone. A man made criminal, a man made foreigner, in my case to the profession that I once purported to be be qualified to do.

For now I do bid you adieu.

Martin of the Magyars

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