"not all the strength in the world / could have saved me that night / god I don't have the words"

[larryhammer]

The world inhabited by the sample sentences in foreign language grammar books continues to amuse me:

Atarashii shushô wa, haiku wa jôzu desu ga, seiji wa mâmâ desu. - "The new prime minister is good at hiaku, but his politics are so-so."

---L.

Comments

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

That amuses me greatly. :-)

[larryhammer]

In another section of the book, there's a series spaced over a couple several grammatical points that, strung together, read like overheard snippets of a group of people negotiating where they will all eat out. "Hanako likes the French restaurant by the train station." "John cannot eat sushi, but likes tempura."

Why, if this is the case, John is in Japan in the first place is left to the imagination.

---L.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Maybe he went there for Worldcon? I taught anghara how to say she was allergic to seafood, in case she needed to warn anybody.

[larryhammer]

That's one possible scenario. Another is family is there on business.

---L.

[jennifergale.livejournal.com]

I love, love, LOVE sample sentences. They were the most amusing part of language classes.

In German, we repeated the first chapter conversations so often that I still remember them, 20 years later.

What's your name?

Ute.

Wow! That's my name too!

Not nearly as epic as a prime minister who's great at haiku but not at politics, but. Yeah. (I also took great delight in saying Mein vater ist ein feinmechaniker, because Dad was pretty sure I was insulting him somehow.)

(Edited for html fail)

(a, what, precision machinist?)

[larryhammer]

Because there are so many people outside of Germany named Ute. Hee.

My name for German class purposes was Wolfgang. This still amuses me. Especially since for Spanish it had, for obvious reasons, been Lorenzo.

---L.