For me English is my second language and when I came to Canada I promise myself to preserve my cultural and moral values. Everything was very good except for one small word that I am using in my language very often. Spelling is different but the pronunciation is the same. We don’t use this English word in our house.
I did not realize the big implication in our life until next week when my daughter came home with spelling test from school. She is in grade 2 and every week she is learning to spell 10 new words. At the end of the week she has a test from them and also they can make their words with a suffix given by the teacher.
She is excellent in spelling but this week I had a big surprise when I read last word on the test. Not only that was a bad word (spelled correctly) but the teacher gave her a good mark for that word. This word was made by my daughter as a result of her interpretation of a Romanian word. The suffix was “uck” so my daughter wrote” fuck” because of the Romanian word “fac”. This Romanian word “fac” means I do in English and we pronounce it like ”fuck” in English.
She found out from another student that is a bad word because her teacher said nothing to her . We try to explain her why she done it and it’s not her fault. It’s only my Romanian ego that made my daughter to feel embarrass in front of her teacher. I apologize to her and now I must have a talk with her teacher and explain everything.
Do we really need so many languages in the world? It is my ego or we have a Crazy world!!!
Adrian B 
It’s cool how one thing in some language can mean absolutely different thing in another. English is not my native language, as well, but I’m used to German since I was 12 and I picked up English a bit later, I’m originally from Latvia. I believe the teacher realizes it’s not your daughter’s fault and basically it’s not a big deal. She’s just learning. She is definitely not the first or only one who’s made some funny spelling mistakes! The main thing is she is studying a new language and she shouldn’t be discouraged by small and meaningless errors like this one.
Dear Adrian,
certainly we need so many languages, they differ us from each other. Another matter is when you have to move to other country and to assimilate there. It’s never easy to be an emigrant, but, strangely enough, the emigrants keep better the linguistic traditions. English is not a native language for me as well, but, agree, it’s a pleasure to compare the difference between it and our native one. (In the very bossom each of us, foreigners I mean, believe that the native language is smarter). This selfish thought demonstrates that we have very strong link with our roots.
Best regards,
Maria
Thank you Maria for your nice and true comment. We have to keep our roots strong with a respect for everybody else’s roots.
I was just talking about languages to my best friend the other day, and he said that it must have been much easier when everyone just spoke Latin. But think of the wars that would begin if one country decided theirs would be the only language in the world now? Even if we were all Deaf, each country has their own version of sign as well – even Quebec.
We really need to work on the telepathy thing I think. 😛
Nice post. I’m sure your daughter’s teacher will understand the misunderstanding… This country is made up of wonderful people like you with various backgrounds after all. 🙂
Thank you Linda for your nice comment. I hope we will not have the same destiny like the old Babylon.
Oh my goodness the things they say! Good luck explaining it to the teacher – I’m sure the teacher will be as amused as I am 🙂 . Good on her for staying calm and just marking the paper straight-faced!
Thank you Bronwyn Joy for your comment. Honest I don’t think that she realize what she done.
I’m sure she didn’t!