GreenlightmeansGO
Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Location: Daegu
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 Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:31 am Post subject: |
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Lifted this off wikipedia. It's called Zuiikin English...
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At the beginning of the show, the host and mastermind, Fernandez Verde, demonstrates an interesting philosophy in learning languages. He proclaims that different cultures use muscles in different proportions due to their customs. For example, in one episode he states Japanese people have stronger lower back muscles (from bowing and keeping a lower posture), and a different leg muscle structure (due to squatting for long periods of time). He feels that using those particular muscles while learning the language of that culture will create strong connotations in your mind and faster learning.
Then a sketch starts like an ordinary language lesson program. Every time a new English phrase is introduced, the sketch pauses and switches to the Zuiikin Gals, a threesome gymnastic exercise team. They start to perform synchronised exercises with innocent smiles on their faces while chanting the phrase hypnotically to idyllic techno-pop sounds. The choice of unpractical phrases such as "Spare me my life," "I have a bad case of diarrhea," "How dare you say such a thing to me," "Let's go Dutch," and perhaps most famously, "I was robbed by two men," in combination with the total lack of efforts to neutralise the accent add up to a sense of irrelevance that is probably the main source of viewer's amusement.
In the final episode, three English native speakers formed the Zuiikin Boys and demonstrated gymnastic movements while chanting supposedly useful Japanese phrases. One such phrase, "tsumaranai mono desuga" (つまらない物ですが） ends up translating rather roughly to "please accept this trifling thing". No translations are provided during these Japanese lessons as they are for the English lessons, only Japanese characters and romanisations. |
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