A Japanese friend wanted to learn English so she started watching CNN while on the treadmill at the gym to train her ears. It was during Obama’s presidential campaign so words like “voters” and “election,” were jumping back and forth among the announcers and repeated all the time, so she was able to catch them.

One day she asked me, “I understand the meaning of “vote” but I don’t quite understand the meaning of “election,” with heavily-accented Japanese. I knew the context so I knew what she meant but I could not stop laughing. I told her the meaning of “election” in Japanese but told her not to try to speak it again. The reason is that Japanese people have a hard time pronouncing the “L” in election, so it becomes “R.” Got it ?

Submitted by Simone, Bangkok