To Provoke or Procreate

4 May, 2006. 2.00pm. Trnava, Slovakia.

Just this morning I encountered another funny mistranslation (or rather, pronunciation slip-up) that I thought I'd share.... In one of my most entertaining and enjoyable classes at Obchodna Akademia (1E--again, mainly young teenage girls) I began the class (as usual) with a little informal small-talk. This class has a great sense of humour so it's easy to get a few laughs from them (although whether they are laughing with me, or at me, I'm never quite sure). Sometimes, however, they can get a little too silly and if I'm not careful the class can easily get started on the wrong foot (i.e. they get too excited and rambunctious). Today was one of those days when they got a little out-of-control, so I had to tell them politely to calm down. One of the more clever students in response said "Mr. Brendan, you shouldn't provoke us." At least, that's what she meant to say. Her pronunciation, however, of "provoke" was something like "procrate" which sounded a lot like "Mr. Brendan, you shouldn't procreate us." When I explained, politely, her pronunciation error, she responded "It's true, you shouldn't provoke or procreate us!" It seems to me that such a conversation/situation could never happen in a Canadian classroom without both sides (teacher and students) feeling more than a little uncomfortable.... In this case, it was just really funny!