How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy Read Online Free Page B

from my own language into your language.”
    “G.O.T.?” Eric inquired.
    “Gift Of Tongues,” the alien explained.  “It’s a bit like Bluetooth.  Except that Bluetooth only allows mobile phones to communicate with each other, whereas G.O.T. can analyse brainwaves and translate what you’re saying into a language I can understand.  And vice versa, so you can understand me as well.”
    “Well how do you explain the Geordieness?” Eric quizzed.
    “Well your brain obviously thinks in Geordie, doesn’t it?” the alien explained.  “So that’s what the G.O.T. picks up.  It’s obviously not going to be BBC perfect English cos that’s not how you speak.  It converts my language into your local dialect.”
    The alien could tell by the look on Eric’s face that he wasn’t convinced.  “Look, I’ve done a bit of research on Earth and I know yous’ve got loads of different languages.  So if you don’t believe uz then say something in another language and I’ll tell you what you’re saying.”
    “Right!” Eric agreed, accepting the challenge.  He figured that the chances were that a TV extra would expect him to say something in one of the more common languages for English people to learn, such as French or Spanish, but Eric knew a bit of Japanese which he was confident would catch the TV extra off guard.  “Kono hito wa totemo baka desu.  Demo watashi wa sugoi desu.”  Eric stared at the alien smugly.  “What’s that mean?”
    “This man is very stupid,” the alien translated quick as a flash.  “But I am better than good, but not as good as excellent.”
    Eric looked momentarily confused.  “Better than good but not as good as…” he muttered to himself.  “Ar, right!” he remarked as the penny dropped.  ‘Sugoi’ was actually Japanese for ‘great,’ so the alien’s long-winded ‘better then good, but not as good as excellent,’ reply threw him for a second.  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Eric acknowledged, once his brain had finally caught up with things.  “…although I would generally translate ‘sugoi’ to mean ‘great.’  But I suppose ‘better than good, but not as good as excellent’ means the same thing as ‘great.’”
    “Ar, right,” the alien replied, looking a bit confused.  The G.O.T. on his mobile phone had translated Eric’s previous sentence back into his own alien language as, ‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right …although I would generally translate ‘great’ to mean ‘great.’  But I suppose ‘great’ means the same thing as ‘great.’’  G.O.T. was an extremely useful technological advance with massive benefits when it came to space travel, but it was not without its flaws.  “That last sentence came out a bit weird, like,” the alien explained, “but even so, I still basically knew what you said.  All thanks to the magic of G.O.T.”
    “Aye but just cos you knew what I said, that doesn’t mean you’ve got some clever hi-tech translation device on your mobile phone, though,” Eric surmised.  “That just means that by a fluky coincidence you speak Japanese.”
    “Japanese?  Is that the language you were speaking, like, was it?” the alien inquired.
    “Well, aye.  You obviously know it was cos you knew what it meant,” Eric asserted.
    “I knew what it meant but I didn’t know what language it was,” the alien explained.  “G.O.T. translates but it doesn’t tell you what the original language was.  That’s not what G.O.T. is about.  It’s purely a communication tool.  Not an educational tool.”
    “Aye, very funny,” Eric remarked, “but the joke’s dragging on a bit now, so if you’ll just tell uz which way the exit is.”
    “Look, if you’re still not convinced then try something else,” the alien suggested.
    Eric decided that if the chances of the TV extra speaking Japanese were pretty remote, then the chances of him speaking Japanese and Swedish were extremely miniscule.  Admittedly,