Estoy enferma, maestra!

March 2, 2009 9:27 AM

How do you say "I feel sick, teacher!" In as many languages as possible?

I am looking for not the Babelfish definition, but the colloquial, proper way of saying it. This is for a presentation on English as an Additional Language.

posted by By The Grace of God to education (35 comments total)

Romanian: "Doamnă Profesoară, mă simţ rău!" (Or "Domnul Profesor", for a male teacher.)
posted by the luke parker fiasco at 9:31 AM on March 2

Excellent for the Romanian. That may be useful for me; I plan to visit Bucharest as soon as I can (with the exception of the 'Doamna Profesoara'/'Domnul Profesor', as it will not be in an academic setting - I suppose I'd say just 'Doamna'/'Domnul'/'Domnisoara'.)

Latin: "Magister/Magistra, infirmus/infirma sum!' 'Magister'/'Magistra' is for a male or female teacher, and 'infirmus'/'infirma' is whether you are male or female.
posted by kldickson at 9:37 AM on March 2

Will this be presented printed, or do you need to know how to pronounce the phrase in the given languages as well?
posted by the luke parker fiasco at 9:38 AM on March 2

'Domnisoara', by the way, is Romanian for 'Miss'.
posted by kldickson at 9:38 AM on March 2

In Irish: A mhuinteoir, tà tinneas orm!

In French: Professeur, j'ai mal au coeur!
posted by LN at 9:41 AM on March 2

they are goin' in a spech, so pronounciation guides are helpful Mr Fiasco!
posted by By The Grace of God at 9:42 AM on March 2

Romanian: do-ahm-nuh pro-feh-swah-ruh/dohm-nool pro-feh-sor, muh seemts ruh-oo.

Latin: mah-gee-ster/mah-gee-strah, een-feer-moos/een-feer-mah soom.
posted by kldickson at 9:45 AM on March 2

I'd suggest you listen to some samples of each language to get an idea of how to pronounce it.
posted by kldickson at 9:47 AM on March 2

Finnish: 'Opettaja, minulla on huono olo!'

Word order changed to fit the language better.

If you want to be more colloquial, one option would be:

'Ope, mulla on paha olo!'

Finnish is pronounced exactly as it's written. No silent letters. Double consonant and vowels are just slightly elongated version of the normal sound that letter makes.
posted by slimepuppy at 9:47 AM on March 2

Since I'm relaxing with the flu today and my body is tired as hell but otherwise I'm awake, you know what I might do? I'm going to make some recordings of the ones I can pronounce for you and I'm going to upload them to the internets and give you a link to it.
posted by kldickson at 9:52 AM on March 2

In some languages it doesn't sound natural to address someone as "teacher".
posted by martinrebas at 9:55 AM on March 2

that's fine.. "miss" or "sir" or whatever is in the right language! and omg kidickson you rock ten thousand universes of awesome (as do the rest of you lot)!
posted by By The Grace of God at 9:55 AM on March 2

In Twi (from central Ghana in West Africa)

Mepawokyew tikya, mereyare. (Please teacher, I'm sick)

Pronounced:

Muh-paaaw-cho teacha, may yar-eh.
posted by carmen at 9:56 AM on March 2

Japanese: Sensei, sumimasen byoki desu. (it's probably got the wrong politeness level, but hey, you're sick)
posted by plinth at 10:02 AM on March 2

(I put tikya, which is the English-borrowed word because I think that if a kid were going to say "teacher" rather than the name/title of the person, they would use that rather than the Twi word for teacher, which I also can't write because I don't have all the characters necessary, but is pronounced oh-cherray-cherray-nee. Also I added please because it would be very rude for a student to address a teacher without starting the sentence with please.)
posted by carmen at 10:03 AM on March 2

'Domnisoara', by the way, is Romanian for 'Miss'.
posted by kldickson at 9:38 AM on March 2 [+] [!]

True, but due to the respect for authority thing, even unmarried female teachers are referred to as "Doamnă" (speaking from experience).
posted by the luke parker fiasco at 10:07 AM on March 2

German:
Ich fühle mich krank, Herr Lehrer.
posted by dunkadunc at 10:12 AM on March 2

Rioplatense Spanish is typically "Me siento mal, profesor/a." This would be for a "I suddenly feel sick" situation. If you're calling, say, to explain you're taking a day off, "Estoy enfermo, profesor/a" would be more appropiate.
posted by Iosephus at 10:15 AM on March 2

Albanian: Mësuese, jam i sëmurë. (Teacher = female, you = male)
Pronunciation: muh-sue-eh-seh, yahm ee suh-moo-ruh.
posted by preparat at 10:32 AM on March 2

Polish: Pan, mam nudności. For a male teacher. Pronounced pan, mam nudnoshchi. (a as in bath, u as in moo, o as in no, ch as in church)
Pani, mam nudności. For a female teacher. (Same pronunciacion except i in pani is like the letter e)
posted by kochanie at 10:35 AM on March 2

Here are the sound files:

Romanian, both 'Domnul Profesor' and 'Doamna Profesoara'

Latin, all four combinations

Finnish, formal and colloquial

Japanese
posted by kldickson at 10:36 AM on March 2

Here's a French rap song called J'ai mal au coeur though the phrase is usually used specifically for nausea (see also: J'ai la nausée).

Other options en français:

Je me sens mal (I feel sick)
Je suis malade (I'm unwell/I'm sick)
Je ne me sens pas bien (I don't feel well)

End sentences with professeur, mademoiselle, monsieur, or madame.
posted by zoomorphic at 10:50 AM on March 2

Chinese: Laoshi, wo bu shufu.


"Teacher, I don't feel good."
Links to the pronunciation for each word, since I can't describe tonal system over the internetz.
posted by HabeasCorpus at 11:08 AM on March 2

Korean:

선생님, 저 기분 안좋아요
sun-seng-neem, juh kee-buun ahn-joe-waah-yo
'teacher, I don't feel well'

선생님, 저 아파요
sun-seng-neem, juh ah-pah-yo
'teacher, I'm sick' (slightly colloquial)
posted by suedehead at 11:09 AM on March 2

Sorry, to be specific, my post refers to mandarin chinese.
posted by HabeasCorpus at 11:09 AM on March 2

Luxembourgish:
Joffer, mir ass schlecht. (replace Joffer with Här Lehrer for male teacher).
Pronunciation: Yoffer, mere arse (sort of like British arse) shlesht.
posted by ClarissaWAM at 11:45 AM on March 2

Hungarian:

Tanárnő (F) / Tanár Úr (M), rosszul vagyok!
posted by tigrrrlily at 12:07 PM on March 2

Pronunciation guide for the Irish:

A win-tyeor, tah tinn-yas orm.
posted by LN at 12:36 PM on March 2

this is GREAT.

Has anybody got Slovak, by the way?
posted by By The Grace of God at 12:55 PM on March 2

Pronunciation on dunkadunc's German:

ICK fooew*-LEH miCK krahNK, haiR leh-REHR**.

*this close to being the vowel-sound in "flue"
**like "rare", kind of
(Audio clips can be found at dict.leo.org, if my misbegotten phonetic spellings aren't doing it for you.)

Oh, and you should swap "Herr Lehrer" for "Herr/Frau Professor/in" (pro-fehs-sOR-in) if you meant a university teacher. That would feel a bit more colloquial to me, as I never addressed a non-uni teacher as anything but "Herr/Frau Lastname".
posted by teremala at 2:58 PM on March 2

Spanish -- Estoy enfermo, senor profesor/senora profesora (I am sick, mr. professor/mrs. professor)

Siento mal (I feel sick)
posted by Daddysugar at 8:37 PM on March 2

Icelandic (I'm a little rusty, so I had to check with my mom):

Beég held að ég sé veik, kennari! (Pronunciation is pretty similar to English, with the accented 'e' stronger (e.g. "ég" ("I") sounding like "yeg", and "ð" as a soft "th", like in "this". Here's a video of Icelandic pronunciation that may give you an idea)

I don't have an exact translation for Slovak (what I could suss out translates more to "I'm sick, teacher!"), so if someone has a better one please correct me, but since you requested it specifically:

Som chorý (chorá), učiteľ (učiteľka)! (with a hard "ch", similar to the English "k", emphasis on the accented vowels, accented "c" as "ch" (like cheese), and the apostrophe as a slight, almost aspirated "y" sound)
posted by the luke parker fiasco at 12:55 AM on March 3

Hungarian:

Tanárnő (F) / Tanár Úr (M), rosszul vagyok!
posted by tigrrrlily at 12:07 PM on March 2 [+] [!]

Hungarian is notoriously difficult to pronounce for most English speakers. Unaccented "a" sounds more like "o", accented "a" like the English. The closest approximations for "ő" and the "gy" combination would be, respectively, a long "o" with puckered lips, and the "gy" as "d" (again, these aren't perfect, but as close as someone who's never studied Hungarian would probably get anyway). An approximation might look like:
"Tonarnoo/Tonar uur, ros-sul vodyok!"

(I posted a recent question about Benedek Fliegauf films that includes some clips in Hungarian, to give you an idea of how it sounds)
posted by the luke parker fiasco at 1:03 AM on March 3

Thanks, LPF, for the transliteration. I have some trouble adopting an outside perspective to either language, so left it alone.
posted by tigrrrlily at 7:46 AM on March 4

went great guys! Thanks from my boss.
posted by By The Grace of God at 2:02 PM on March 4