Mangled English: Part 1

Apologies for the long absence - I imagine you've attributed it to laziness, but in actuality it's taken me days to wrestle back control of the blog from a pesky little bear named Gunther. He sits there crying, little furry paws tapping frantically on the keys, and I hadn't the heart to tear him away. He's also keeps giving me a real case of the side eye; I'm not sure he's forgiven me yet for the abandonment and for having been left with such inappropriate 'babysitters.'

Anyway, there will be a real post soon, I promise, but as I am going out in a few minutes I shall content myself for now with part one of what I imagine will be a frequently recurring series over the next few months: Mangled English.

As I'm sure you can imagine, we have encountered lots of, well, creative uses of the English language during our time in Prague, not least the strange purposes to which George subjects my poor mother tongue. Now, I am not being critical here; I understand that most Czech people's English is about a million times better than my Czech, which after four weeks here unfortunately still mainly consists of the rabid overuse of prosim, flagrant mispronunciation of the words nashledanou and děkuji, and the use of Russian numbers as I can't quite ever remember the Czech ones. So no, no criticisms from me. Indeed, I believe that the creative possibilities of English are best revealed when it is dragged through a hedge backwards by an over-enthusiastic learner, and as such I shall delight in sharing their nuggets of wisdom with you all.

Exhibit A in the mangled English freak parade is this genuine and unadulterated section of a restaurant review taken from the English page of Prague's free weekly magazine, which aptly demonstrates why some people should never be left unsupervised in the presence of a thesaurus. Unfortunately, this is the restaurant I'm going to tonight, and so I must admit I am a little concerned about the following:

'But why not spoil ourselves with a little bit of bliss at least through the digestive tract, when all the food speedily turns into joylessness way and everybody has got a headache from it? It's good to try in this case, when such bliss will cost you all the money that you've earned in the last month. The newcomer will probably be fascinated with the pleasant interior's conception....the whole environment is completed with other sensual adornments, because in the tearooms the taste is not the only thing that is important. The visitors would surely wish a little bit more from attentive waiters, whose laxity can be excused perhaps only by the temperament and habits in the latitudes, from where they come from.'

Photos, Photos Everywhere

Apologies for there having been a misleadingly titled 'My Photos' on the links bar for a few days (misleadingly titled in that there were no photos of any kind whatsoever, and the link led you only into some barren wilderness somewhere in the dingy backstreets of Picasa-land). Happily, I can now confirm that if you bother to click on the 'My Pics' link you will actually be taken to a page containing lots of pretty pictures of snow, sunshine and drunken misadventure in the beautiful capital of Bohemia. Oh, and Katie has also got her act together and put her pics on Flickr, so do click there for more.

There are about 100 pics on mine at the moments but I'll post more from this week soon, so do check back for updates. I imagine there'll be a lot of the 'drunken misadventure/hideous gurn' genre from this weekend, as it's our last weekend in Prague and hence must be celebrated as all events are in Prague: with beer. I'm also finally going to go to the castle tomorrow and pay my respects to the wonderful Rudolph, so you should also expect lots of wonky pictures of gothic spires. Don't pretend you're not excited....

A Bear Called It

Dear readers,

My name is Gunther and today I have taken over Jenny's blog to share my story with you all. These things, I hope you will understand, are not easy for me to talk about, but I hope that by being open about my experiences I will encourage other tortured and abandoned little bears to speak out and find help.

Despite my beautiful little face and my large, trusting eyes, I for some reason seem to be the sort of bear that attracts the attentions of the violent and the depraved, and many times in my life I have been subject to abuse, abandoment and neglect. My early years were unremmitingly traumatic; forced to sit on the shelves of the local garden centre, I was continuously taunted by the staff and was often used as a missile, quietly sobbing into my little bow as I was tossed into plantpots and hurled against piles of weedkiller.

It is now almost a decade since Jenny rescued from this pitiful life, and on that day when she ceased her employment and walked out of that garden centre with me in tow, I thought briefly that my troubles were over. I at last had a mother who loved me, and who promised to protect me from my abusers. Yet, I am sad to say that my reprieve from suffering was all-too-brief. Although in the last few years I have had the opportunity to travel widely and to see things that I never dreamed of, I have also faced repeated victimization by those who cannot see the humanity that lies behind my delicate bear-like features.

The incidents of abuse have been many, and my tormentors too numerous to list. The litany of torture I have faced has included being hurled from a third floor window into the bushes by a drunken student, and an attempted kidnapping by a Mayan seven-year old, from whose sticky little hands I was barely able to escape. It is only in recent weeks, however, that my hitherto fragile faith in humanity has been completely and irrevocably shattered. Jen, who has for years been my only friend and protector, abandoned me, leaving me buried under her bed as she took off east. Crushed between old notebooks and discarded pieces of junk, I sobbed quietly as I lay there, completely forgotten.

Admittedly, Jen realised her mistake and sent for me, and after a traumatic but fortunately brief excursion across the Midlands in a postman's van, I was delivered into the care of an unkempt-looking fellow named Jon, of whom I was immediately suspicious. I had encountered this Jon many times before in the past few years, and every time Jen was not there to protect me he had turned his unwanted attentions upon me. Taunting, squishing, unwanted touching, nothing was too much for this monster. Fortunately, this time he was not inspired to torture, for he delivered me safely into the care of my mother in Prague without being tempted to unwrap me from the sheet of paper inside of which I cowered in fear.

My suspicion of Jon, however, was well-placed; for he, along with his cackling accomplice, a girl named Katie who has also frequently in the past delighted herself in my pain, was of course not content to leave me in peace. Once Jenny had gone out, the two pounced, with Katie taking photographs of my degradation as the hideous Jon amused himself at my expense. First they got me drunk on black cherry cordial, then the abuse became ever crueller, with them squashing my head into my neck before hanging me from a lamp by the string of my tag in a mock-suicide.

To show the abuse I faced, I have taken the difficult decision to post the photos that were taken of my suffering. This will show that I am no crazed fantasist, but a genuine victim of the sadism of those who are more like beasts than men.









So far, Katie and Jon have faced no censure for their behaviour other than a mild rebuke from Jenny, who has once again promised to protect me from all those who wish to harm me. Given her woeful neglect of my welfare in the past few weeks, I cannot dare to believe that she will succeed. It is my hope, dear blog readers, that you will offer me some solace with your kind comments in this, my hour of need.

Yours,

Gunther

Cake

And so to the post about cake, because cake, not money, indeed makes the world go round. This is fortunate given that a cursory look at the Guardian website indicates that the UK banking system is once again facing into impending doom. Admittedly, this development is itself unfortunate as it may precipitate further falls in the pound that will make it more difficult for me to buy cake, but I remain confident that a cake-centred philosophy will enable me to overcome any difficulty that comes my way.

Anyway, I have been delighted to find that my preconceptions about central European cities being hotbeds of baked delights are indeed true, for cake in Prague is delicious, and despite the continuing slide of my fair nation into financial decrepitude, remains comparatively cheap.

In particular, I have found myself rather taken by 'Cafe Louvre,' which is an elegant turn of the century Art Nouveau cafe that was once the favourite haunt of luminaries such as Einstein and Kafka. Although its history was, as the.....'dramatically interrupted' by the Communist takeover in 1948 (i.e. they threw all the furniture out of the window and closed the place down), it is now back and is once again serving an array of delights. So far, I have sampled the Black Forest Gateau, the Honey Cake, the Sachertorte and a delicious Poppy Seed and Plum Strudel. I originally intended to take a photo of each of these and have 'cake updates,' but have been forgetful, and so I only have a photo of the first for you to slobber at, as well as this picture of a group of us at Cafe Louvre.



Just know, indeed, that there is cake, and it is good.

Let Us Drink To Moister Laps

Apologies for the lack of updates - I sense the pattern of this blog might be complete inactivity for a few days and then a torrent of posts, making both of my initial predictions of its fate simultaneously true. This may mean that I share the clairvoyant powers of today's blog subject, a thought which is not entirely reassuring.

Today, I would like to introduce you to George. Not my father, who was rather disappointed to find out that for once my comment about sixty-year old disruptive influences was not referring to him. It does however refer to another George, who is pictured above with myself and my flatmate Kate. George (Jiři in Czech, but known to English and Czech alike at Oxford TEFL by his anglicized name) is one of our language students, and is both a comic genius and a complete and utter eccentric. Needless to say he provides English teachers with a lot of entertainment.

At the school where I am training, our students/guinea pigs are locals who pay a minimal fee to experience attend classes taught by a revolving series of trainee English teachers. As each class is held four times a week (although few attend that often), most students tend only to come for a few months. George, however, has been diligently attending evening English classes every month for five years and is a veritable Oxford TEFL legend. His English is not as good as this fact may lead one to believe, but he is very gifted at using it for nefarious purposes, many of which, despite the fact that he has been married for 25 years, involve trying to charm ladies. George is also at the centre of the 'Konvikt' crew, which is the name of the group of teachers, trainees, students and assorted randomers that attend the legendary Thursday pub night, and he organises various socials and trips throughout the year.

Here are a few of George's gems so far. Picture the following coming from the mouth of a sixty-year old man wearing a black and white striped jumper and a rather natty leather waistcoast, accompanied with florid gesticulation, numerous pauses and pensive looks at the sky.

In the lessons:

- 'Yes, she go to Morocco last summer, and she....she was slave' (in class, when asked a question about the lady next to him's worst experience travelling. Needless to say this was not indeed true).
- 'I say Paul bad word because I fall asleep in his lesson and he do not wake me up. All my money goes poof out of window when I am sleeping' (he had indeed dozed off earlier in one of my colleagues' lessons).
- 'No, I am not good today. It is full moon, so nothing is good. People are like wolves and they are not well. Everything is bad' (when asked how he was at the beginning of a class).

At the pub:

- 'Ah, beer. Beer is good. Yes, for ladies beer is very good for chest.'
- 'I am clairvoyant, I am hearing things from sky gods. No, I cannot say. I have signed a contract so I must....I must keep it silent.'
- 'We must drink to moister laps' (George's favourite 'cheers.' David, our Course Director, was previously unsure if George thought he was saying 'moister lips,' but when questioning him on Thursday we ascertained that this was not the case).
- 'Nádraži' (the version of 'cheers' that George teaches the trainees to say. I have since found out that this translates as 'train station,' with the correct form of 'cheers' actually being 'na zdravi).

If you can speak Czech, more of George's unadulterated wisdom can be found at the Konvikt blog, which is at http://konvikt.blog.cz/ (Martina, please read it and tell me what it says!) English speakers can find the useful chat up phrases that we taught George last Thursday faithfully reproduced, as well as a link to George's Picasa web albums which contain lots of pictures of Konvikt carnage.

Tā mē ceart go lōir

One of the many requirements of us as students on the Trinity CertTESOL course is that we spend four hours learning an unfamiliar language in complete immersion classes and then submit a reflective journal about the experience. In itself, this is really quite sensible, as it gives us some idea of how beginners in English feel and watching the teacher gives us some useful ideas on how to teach without using the students' first language in lessons at all.

However, it would surely seem logical, would it not, for this unknown language to be Czech? It's sufficiently scary (7 cases, people) to satisfy Trinity's exacting requirements, none of the students on the course are already able to speak it, and, most importantly, it is the language spoken in the beautiful city we are living in. But no, oh no. That would be far too logical. So, rather than learning basic Czech, we, my friends, have instead had a crash course in Gaeilge, more commonly known to the world as Irish Gaelic.

Whilst I am not altogether sure when my newfound Gaeilge will come in useful, I have to admit that it is a pretty amazing language. Whilst nobody would claim that English is itself a phoentic language, the Irish do not even bother to pretend that the spelling of a word should have any bearing at all on its pronunciation, meaning that for one written sound there are a dizzying and bewildering array of possible pronunciations, each more implausible than the last. How, for example, would you pronounce the word for goat, 'gabhar?' Gab-har? Gabber? Gay-bar? Nope, you pronounce it 'gower.' In defence of Irish, however, it must be said that these phonological idiosyncracies are combined with some pretty fantastic words. My particular favourites are ceart go lōir (cark'ha'lour), which is Gaelic for OK and fēilicheāin (fai'le'horrn), the very lovely Irish word for butterfly. Also good are Irish greetings. Like in many other languages, the standard Irish hello, dia dhuit, literally translates as 'God be with you.' The reply to this, however, is dia's muire dhuit which is 'God and Mary be with you,' and particulary devout Catholics can continue to greet each other indefinitely by simply adding on the names of more and more saints. What's not to love?

Sadly, my adventures in Gaeilge are now over, as our Unknown Language Journals were completed and handed in to Sinēad, our Irish teacher, at 11.15am this morning (no, I did not miss the deadline and yes, I was up until the small hours writing it). I am actually quite sad, and will miss my daily adventures in leprechaun muchly. I should probably attempt to substitute it with a bit of Czech though, or Russian, and Chinese, given that these are languages I will actually need in the short and medium term.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts about sixty-year old disruptive influences, the joys of central European cake (a post that shall be particularly lovingly written), and, of course, the hopeful return of a lost and lonely little bear. There will, I promise mum, also finally be a post about teaching at some point. And there will definitely be new information for Jo about a certain Professor Strawberry.

A History of Czechs in 68 Minutes

Well, I did not necessarily expect that my second post on this blog would concern Czech theatre, but I absolutely have to post about the production I saw on Saturday night, A History of Czechs in 68 Minutes, which was a hilarious, ward-speed run through Czech history from the Big Bang to the present using a mixture of Czech, English, dressing-up costumes and intepretive dance. Myself and two of my flatmates, Kate and Kelly, went to see it on Saturday with Lucia and Marcela, two Czech ladies we have met through the school, and all five of us were roaring with laughter.

The production was written and performed by a small theatre company and took place in a small and rather cool little theatre that is tucked away in a back street behind Old Town Square. Given that the theatre was full of Czechs rather than tourists I'm not sure why half they perform half of the show in English, but it certainly made it easier for us to understand what was going on. Then again, who needs lanaguage anyway when your revolving cast of characters includes the guy who founded Bohemia after he decided that the nearby hill resembled a pair of breasts (Czech legend; said hill does actually exist), the first alcoholic Czech and the rather petulant fire that burnt both Jan Hus (fifteenth century) and the National Theatre (nineteenth century) but was unable to extinsguish the Czech spirit and so had to settle for prancing huffily around the stage wearing Ali G's cast-off tracksuits. And, of course, one of my all-time favourite historical nutcases, the wondrous Rudolf II (completely incompetent but utterly inspired 17th century Holy Roman Emperor whose castle in Prague was home to a motley crew of artists, poets, alchemists and astronomers with golden noses), who in a largely historically accurate depiction was mostly featured prancing around in a codpiece and maniacally stroking his face.

One of the best thing about the school is that it is very social; teachers, trainees and staff often socialise together and so we have had lots of opportunities to get to know both our Czech students and the teachers who are currently working in Prague. Lucia is not currently attending classes at the school but is very involved with the Oxford TEFL social scene, and Marcela is one of my current students. Both are lovely, and it was really kind of them to invite us along to this performance - we'd never have known about things like this going on without local contacts.

Here is a picture of the five of us in the theatre bar. Marcela is on the far left and Lucia on the far right, and to my right are my two American flatmates, Kelly and Kate, who I will write more about later. Katie has unfortunately not been very well for the past few days (and I, supportively as ever, have as such dubbed her Snotty Cough-bags), and so decided not to come along on Saturday night. She's still sounding and feeling pretty crock, but hopefully will be on the right side of it soon.

Freezing in Prague

As I'm sure will surprise absolutely nobody, I have been somewhat remiss in setting up this blog - it's now been almost a week since I arrived in the beautiful city of Prague, and yet nary a peep has been heard from me (sorry mum). The reasons for this are threefold: a heavy schedule of lessons, a pesky essay on Russia, Georgia and international institutions that I really should have finished before I got here, and, most importantly, cheap beer.

I shall write more details later, but suffice to say for now that the course is great and everybody here is lovely. Prague itself is absolutely beautiful - a somewhat strange mix of old, twisty streets, grand squares, the inevitable tourist shops selling marionettes, absinthe and and other assorted overpriced delights and, overlooking it all, some magnificently intimidating gothic piles that I can't wait to explore.

We have been very lucky as, unusually even for this time of year, the centre of the city has been blanketed with a lovely thick coating of snow for much of the last week. Unfortunately, the snow is now gone on the streets, but rather than melting into a sorry pile of grey mush, as happens in England, it has iced over into treacherous streaks of grey death, which make walking around very interesting. The temperature outside is also now about -7 degrees, which is excellent preparation for Siberia, but none too forgiving to stupid people who leave their beautiful fur-lined gloves at home and then decide to go for a random evening wander around the Old Town. If it had not been for the warmth provided by my little cup of gluhwein I think I would be typing this blog with my toes.

I have never written a blog before, so we shall see what becomes of this effort - it may be that it shall wither and die due to the aforementioned cheap beer, or it may be that I get a little obsessed with having my very own space to write about the travels and it ends up very long and boring indeed. Either way, family, friends, let me know if you have made it this far!