My President is a WHAT?

One of the most fascinating observations about being a native English teacher in Korea is the pronunciation of the Koreans (also known as Konglish). Some of the most common mistakes are due to pronouncing sounds that don't exist in their own language.

For example, the /r/ and /l/ liquids and the /b/ and /v/ sounds:

"Teacher, today I go swimming in the leeber." [river]

Another example is how Koreans cannot end their words with certain consonants:

"Teacher, time to eat lunchee."
"Okay, turn to pagee 42."
"Nice-uh!"

Or because "see" sounds would be pronounced "shee" in Korean:

"I go watch moobee in sheenema." [I am going to watch a movie at the cinema]

And probably the most common error, confusing the /p/ and /f/ sounds:

"Teacher, me see you handuh pone." [Teacher, can I see your cell phone?]
"Teacher, my priend, he pool!" [Teacher, my friend is a fool]

So then you get sentences such as this:

"Teacher, I go to the shitty leeber to habba picuh-nic and eat lice and pork-uh poor lunchee. Today my birthday. Please-uh, gibba me gipat-uh." [Teacher, I'm going to the city's river to have a picnic and eat rice and pork for lunch. Today is my birthday, so please give me a gift.]

Just when I thought I heard it all, this was the icing on the cake.

For our lesson today, my co-teacher had a picture of George Bush on a power point because he was playing a guitar (lesson topic: What do you want to do?...I want to play the guitar). And while a few said "Georgee Bushee!" a majority of them yelled out...

"Georgee Pussy!"

I thought for a second about correcting them, but I only correct my students when they are wrong.