Translation---and getting lost in it---are commonplace in my classroom. Sometimes the result is funny, sometimes it leads to hurtful misunderstandings. One thing is for certain though, dictionaries should not be wholly trusted.
I have had a couple very amusing times with students over the use of dictionaries. The other day I asked my students, "What are your two favorite animals and why?" One student triumphantly told me that his second favorite animal was the Mythical Lion Unicorn...What that is in reality (or fantasy) is yet to be determined. But the translation did prove to be quite funny. My sixth grade boys have also come to call farting "Breaking wind" which is by no means incorrect...just hilarious when sixth grade korean boys say it.
They also talk about their classmates going through "metamorphosis"--I assume this is something to do with puberty...I don't really want to know the logistics. All I can think of when they say this though, is Kafka's Gregor Samsa as a huge beetle lying on his back in his locked room, struggling to flip onto his many legs.
As it is Thursday, and a stumbly one at that, I stumbled upon this site : http://tashian.com/multibabel/
It translates phrases to and from English and other languages to reveal how even the simplest of phrases can be Lost In Translation (I typed that into the box, and came up with the title of this post--It Destroys and It Turns, hahaha).
Take a stab at it (translated as: In order to consider with, the one that it punctures). It's fun.
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