Notes from the TEFL Graveyard

Well-meaning folk know that schadenfreude , the taking of delight in others’ misfortune, is neither big nor clever – it is an invention of Germans with low self-esteem who wish to make themselves feel better. But I simply had to share what follows, due to it being the extraordinary masterwork of an apparently pinga -addled mind. I have recently been asked by a company in São Paulo to give prospective Portuguese-English translators a mark out of ten based on a test they complete and email to the company. Normally their attempts are marred by tell-tale Brazilian mistakes - misuse of prepositions, making adjectives plural, using “of” all the time instead of the possessive apostrophe, etc. (I am exacting, the Judge Dredd of bilinguistics). Then, one day I received the following. By the end of the first sentence I usually know whether it’s worth continuing, but this chap’s attempt took things to a whole new level. He starts, presumably soberish, making a few errors in the first...

If there’s one thing Brazilians are outright world leaders at, it’s naming their offspring. There’s little you can do except get down on your knees in rapture and pay homage to the laissez-faire attitude with which they apply themselves to the often predictable act of christening their young. On my travels I have identified three broad categories of name giving, being: (1) the perverted surname as first name - Washington, Wellington, Nelson, Anderson, etc, (2) the bastardised famous name - Adolpho Hitler de Oliveira, Charles Chaplin Ribeiro, Elvis Presley da Silva, Hericlapiton da Silva, Ludwig van Beethoven Silva, Maicon Jakisson de Oliveira, Marili Monrói, Marlon Brando Benedito da Silva, Sherlock Holmes da Silva, and (3) the totally made up name - Oderfla (read it backwards to discover her father’s name), Vanderju (presumably a combination of Vanderson and Juliana), Fridundino Eulâmpio, Rocambole Simionato (Meatloaf Simoniato) and Letsgo Daqui (yes, that really is “let'...

Several people have muttered to me over recent years their regret that it wasn’t the British that colonised this part of the world, presumably because, if they had, there would be a greater emphasis given to tea, scones, cricket, alcohol abuse and the growing of decent lawns/grassed areas. Believe me I’ve offered, but it’s a big country for one man to take on, let alone me. Whilst I lack legitimate political ambitions, if and when I am invited to form a government I do have some radical ideas to shake up local government and rid the creaking system of the endemic corruption that is sadly de rigeur . My only demand would be that I could call myself “Anti-Corruption Czar”, or something with “Czar” in it at least. Under the current system, public life is little more than a trough into which the greediest and most self-centred elements of society sprint headlong and thrust their insatiable snouts. As local government is run on a mayoral system, continuity is almost impossible, as...

I discovered during this experience that interpreting roughly subscribes to the 80-20 rule, ie 80% of the work is performed in 20% of the time, and vice-versa. This, coupled with Erich’s undoubted charisma and the Brazilian workers’ tendency to constantly seek his attention and/or approval led to my idle time being filled with some fairly strange translating services. One mechanic wanted me to make it crystal clear to the bemused foreigners that he seldom wore underpants, whilst another, latterly known as bekloppt , unashamedly confessed that he occasionally wet his bed in drunken irreverence, but only, he later qualified, on special occasions celebrated with almighty benders, such as Christmas, New Year, Carnaval , Easter, Labour Day, Independence Day, birthdays, barbecues, christenings, weddings, football derbies, etc. Despite making absolutely plain that he didn’t drink every day, each morning he’d arrive a little more bedraggled and give a rough estimate as to how many cans of beer...

One morning I entered the building to see a disorderly scrum of workers surrounding Mattias, with middle-aged mechanics breaking into a trot to join the melee. Fearing the worst, I suspected one of the young German's pithier one-liners had been seized upon and he was now about to feel the full force of a monkey wrench raised in anger. (Incidentally, a monkey wrench in Brazilian is called a chave inglesa , an “English wrench”, which I find acutely derogatory). I needn’t have worried – it was merely free gift time. Rummaging through his knapsack, Mattias had found various items of tat from his company – cheap plastic ballpoint pens with the company logo on, a couple of rulers and various boxes of matches. They were no ordinary matches, however - they were long matches in a silver cardboard cylinder, which were designed to be struck on the bottom of the tube, not down the side. They became the most coveted item on offer, so much so that a tubby electrician would make a B line for...

My belated congratulations to São Paulo's Vai Vai (Go Go) and Rio's Beija Flor (Humming Bird) samba schools for their respective victories in this year's Carnaval . Sadly, I didn't see either performance in its entirety due to the late hour of their parades, but I did see snippets - pretty sambistas, pretty colours, drill-square-style drumming, etc, etc. Personally I thought Viradouro might win in Rio, due to their impressive float with skiers and snowboarders going down an artificial ski slope, but it seems the judges preferred sumptuousness over innovation this year. And why not? I remained indoors for the festivities, keeping my footwear dry as a bone. ---------------- Now playing: Alçeu Valença - La Belle de Jour via FoxyTunes

I was last made redundant almost a year ago to the day, this time because my three-month contract had slowly petered out. I had been taken on by an industrial installation company to provide services as an English-Portuguese interpreter for three German technicians (a delightfully Brazilian roundabout arrangement), a mechanic, an electrician and a machine operator, during the installation of a roll grinding mill for an aluminium company. It was money for old rope, despite the obvious challenges. I must say that, unlike several of my contemporaries , I have never had a particular problem in dealing with Germans. Except perhaps for the clinically insistent Bavarian dental surgeon who demanded daily that I do a Business English class on the language of dentistry. Explaining for hopefully the last time that this wouldn’t be exactly fair on the other nine members of the class, and that he should seek private one-to-one classes for a subject area so specific, he’d then commandeered a su...

Last night was the fourth and final night of Carnaval parades, and all the colours, feathers and samba beats were beginning to merge into one. Retiring to my quarters, I switched on the TV, which happened to be tuned to the only terrestrial channel that treats people like human beings rather than just mindless consumers, TV Cultura . A strange looking American was being interviewed, so I stuck around to see who it was. There followed an hour of the fascinating and deliciously controversial opinions of Patch Adams MD that render the eponymous film starring Good Morning Vietnam veteran, Robin Williams, a superficial joke. For those who don’t know him, Patch Adams is a trained doctor famous for dressing up as a clown and entering hospitals and refugee camps to care for the sick. His philosophy is that health care should not only be focused on “cure” (which, he points out, can never be guaranteed before a treatment begins), but on “care”, which can be given 100% of the time. This is...