Example 3: Sixteen years after Denis, and a much younger student, Daniel, aged 28 (versus Denis’s then-50), but the same hilarious — if a bit macabre — outcome nonetheless.
In a Listening Comprehension piece, one section in the story said, “I’m the switchboard operator. With so many employees, I sometimes have to take over 1,000 calls a day. Some of the callers even want to leave messages.” The Chinese for “to leave a message” is 留言 liúyán / “leave-behind spoken-words”.
Daniel, as with lots of student before — and undoubtedly after — him, didn’t distinguish the tones so clearly, and ended up hearing yán (言 / “spoken-word”) as yǎn (眼 / “eyes”).
So Daniel’s version has these callers wanting to leave their eyes behind! Infinitely more fun (if gruesome)!
PS: haha, talk about hilarious outcomes! I was typing too fast, so “tones” came out as “toes” — “didn’t distinguish the toes so clearly”. It’s getting surreal, this! These linguistic misses are really catching!
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