Sunday 2 March 2008

English Names

The students in the college choose their own English names - so that their English teachers can write/understand their names. I'm not sure at which stage they choose their names, but suspect it is when they first start learning English.

They choose names for all sorts of reasons - some you'd hardly guess.

And they change them if they don't like them - or perhaps an English teacher has said that the name is not appropriate. Most of my classes have English names that I recognise, but it is not uncommon to find a name that is truly quite creative. I won't write them here - that is not fair, but I will say that some have named themselves after a vegetable, (you can guess who I call Spud), and numbers.

One young lady says her name with a slight French accent, and expects us to do the same as it is a French name.

On the first day I met the students, several of them announced their new English name. "Yesterday I was called ........... but from today I want to be called ............." which must be confusing for all their friends.

3 comments:

Janet said...

What is your name - Dim Sim or do you stick with Dee dee

Anonymous said...

i bet at least one of your student's name is "apple"

Anonymous said...

I used to work in China and did not find out for a year that the Chinese characters a staff member had kindly translated my name into, meant "barbecued pork"! As a vegetarian I was none too pleased to be walking around with that on my business card!