FILL IN each blank with a word or an expression that fits the context appropriately. The first one has been done as an example.

It happened while I was studying Japanese at a Foreign Language University.

It was Tuesday, which by schedule was a conversation day, and the new subject was about animals and the sounds they make. There were eight students in my class, three from Mongolia, two from Romania, one from Hungary, another one from the Philippines, and me from Cambodia. My teacher was asking every student to imitate the sounds of dogs barking in their respective languages.

On that day my eyes were kind of half-shut and half-open, as a result of ____________ night party, chatting and drinking, so ____________  was not quite following the teacher. All I ____________ were “bow-bow,” wow-wow,” and “how-how”.” Those ____________ actually the sounds of dogs barking ____________ Hungarian, Romanian and Mongolian. Then the____________ said: “… It sounds like ‘wan-wan’”. She____________ turned to me and said, “what ____________  a dog sound like in your ____________ ?”

I caught only the phrases “in your language” and “wan-wan”,____________ was really the sound a Japanese makes when it barks, and I ____________ no idea that it sounds like ____________ in Japanese. So I assumed she____________ asking me to pronounce “one” in own language, since “wan-wan” sounded somehow ____________ “one-one.” 

“It sounds like ‘mouy-mouy’,” I ____________ .

“Mouy-mouy?” my Japanese teacher mimicked, looking ____________ surprised and suspicious.

“Are you sure ____________ is ‘Mouy Mouy’?”

“I’m ____________  certain that it’s ‘mouy-mouy’,” I said.

Although I am a bit sleepy, I still remember my own language perfectly well, I thought. Then she turned to the other students and said,“They bark ‘mouy-mouy!” Don’t you think Cambodian dogs are weird? ”

Now you can tell how embarrassed I felt. Of course, the dogs never bark “mouy-mouy.” They make the sound “ woh-woh,” “wow-wow” or “bow-wow” just like Japanese, Romanian or American dogs!

Available at: <http://seserak.blogspot.com/2005/08/embarrassing-experience-of-learning.html> (Adapted). Access on: 18th May 2009.