avshap: (military_pic)
avshap ([personal profile] avshap) wrote2015-12-17 10:03 am

Рядовой Петров!

Разве ты не видишь, что твоему товарищу на голову капает расплавленное олово?!
When I got to know the Japanese officers better, I found out that part of my problem was that our interpreter instructors had been taught by elderly Japanese-American ladies who spoke only old fashioned, honorific Japanese. Instead of barking orders in proper quarterdeck style I'd been most respectfully and politely requesting. The puzzled Japanese must have thought we were a boarding party from Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore under orders from Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B.

(ц)THE TRANSPACIFIC VOYAGE OF H.I.J.M.S. I-400