This post brought to you by the letter W

Yesterday, I was hanging out with my colleagues, experiencing the typical near-insanity that accompanies the faculty in my department whenever we hang out. It's like something out of a very loud Seinfeld episode. I have an office now (the coolest thing ever...pics to come soon, I promise), and Vançin and Mehmet were hanging out, just sitting on my chairs and talking. This is common, by the way, especially when there aren't any students. No one really has anything to do (well, I did, but whatever), and so they sit around and chat in someone's office for hours.

Anyway, like I mentioned before, everyone's really excited to have me here so I can help them improve their vocabulary and pronunciation. A common mistake Turks make in English pronunciation is pronouncing the letter "W" more like the letter "V," especially Mehmet, who also teaches German and is more of an upper beginner, wheras Vançin is very advanced.

So, I called the two guys on their pronunciation, and they were stunned. "You mean we've been pronouncing it wrong?" They said, incredulous. "No one ever told us this!"

I have this terrible habit of pidgeon-holing ESL speakers into the "adorable" category whenever they start pronouncing really basic words. It's so cute I can hardly stand it. Anyway, so both Mehmet and Vançin start saying "Where..." and "When..." and "Why..."really slowly, and it was adorable. They had a hard time figuring out how to form their lips, because they've been taught to have their lip touch their teeth (like to make a V sound). I told them they have to make a kissing face, which had them dying with laughter. So I tried a different tactic and told them that they had to make the "oo" sound, which is like the ü in über. That was a huge help. Then they sat there for about fifteen minutes, pronouncing the sounds again. It was a total riot, but they were SO grateful.

Soon we were joined by the head of our department, Sugarman (okay, his last name translates to Sugarman, so that's what we call him). The men all began chatting in Turkish in front of me, for several minutes.

"HEY!" I yelled, because you have to yell to get heard around these three (it was a good natured yell, of course). "This is MY office, so speak in English!"

They all looked at me, sheepishly. Mehmet and Vançin went back to pronouncing their W's quickly, and Sugarman, my department head, eyed me with a smile and said, "Ha ha! Good teacher, good teacher!"

Bow before me, my English slaves.