It’s kinda funny because in my foreigner badminton group, everyone swears in their native language. I mean, swears just kinda pop out when you least expect it and they roll off the tongue so naturally you don’t have time to think and translate them.
My Chinese friends swear in Chinese, my German friend swears in German, my Czech friend swear in Czech. Naturally I swear in English. I mostly yell “shit!” when I narrowly miss a shot.
In my coaches group, where no one speaks English, several people have taken the opposite approach. They’ve decided that swearing in English is MORE fun than Chinese and they have started copying my “shit” yelled loudly when they miss. Of course, because they swear in English they giggle furiously after saying it which kinda takes away the effect they were going for (when they are really mad, they swear in Chinese).
So Becky, the English teacher, has basically only taught one word of English to an entire group of Chinese people. Am I proud? A tad. I’m not gonna lie.
But the other day I was playing, missed a shot, and yelled out “oh, shit!” I then heard a little voice behind me, copying my timber and my tone saying, “oh, shit.”
I swung around hoping my suspicions were wrong. They weren’t. It was my coaches five-year-old son who had copied me and as I looked at him horrified he ran away giggling, yelling out “oh, shit!” again.
Sorry coach. Sorry kid. Looks like I’m the worst English teacher ever.
Can I at least take credit in that I taught him English?
