Yet more proof that I am an ewil, ewil person

I spent yesterday in Oberschützen serving as a juror for a language competition. I think I did my job fairly well, as the best girl won and we only had to fiddle with the scores once to make it happen. However, I think I spent most of my free time yesterday making fun of language mistakes.

I will be the first to admit that speaking a second language is damn hard, and I don't do it perfectly by any stretch of the imagination. However, there are certain mistakes that, even after five months of hearing them, crack me up immediately.

The biggest one is the v/w confusion. For some reason, 95% percent of my students think they live in a willage and watch telewision while drinking wodka. I don't get it. It's not like V makes a "w" sound in German—in fact, it sounds like "f." They should be saying "fillage," "telefision," and "fodka," which is not nearly as funny. Thank God they're all confused so I can get a good laugh.

Mistake of the day: we were talking about gay marriage, and one of my students wanted to know what "civil onions" were. I immediately pictured two onions in tuxedos, shaking hands and bowing. Heh.