Happy Fourth of July! Besides a wee bit of almost-swearing while navigating through traffic, today was a great day. We spent quite a bit of time with our Asian friends who are in Utah studying English, and taught them a little about the significance of July 4th. More importantly, we made ourselves fat and happy via a BBQ, some BYU Creamery Kids Meals, a small water fight involving a combination of pool water and duck/walrus squirty toys, and a serious fireworks display in the street with some friends.Our day was topped off by a little discussion about embarassing moments while learning (and incorrectly using) a second language. Chantal and I argued that Chinese is a very difficult language and that using the wrong tone typically causes you to be met with blank stares while the person you are speaking with is either wondering why you're so stupid, trying to figure out what the heck you are trying to say, or a combination of both. Chen*, however, countered with the argument that minor pronunciation mistakes in English can cause disastrous, embarassing effects. When we didn't believe her, she launched into her two recent examples.
1. Apparently, Chen was excitedly telling her friend about her visit to Las Vegas where she "played some slots". In Chen's defense, how many of you who know a second language know the word for "slot machine"? In any case, Chen unfortunately mispronounced the word "slots" by substituting the "o" in "slots" with a "u". Completely... different... meaning.
2. Chen's second embarassment came via an innocent Facebook status change. Chen is an incredibly positive, happy, and loving individual--while you could argue that the following is an unconventional Facebook status, Chen changed her status to "Chen thinks love tastes delicious." Unfortunately for her, however, "tastes" was misspelled, with an "e" replacing the "a". Oopsie.
Yeah, she wins. I guess English IS a hard language. For this and many other reasons, I am quite grateful to have grown up in America... where I learned from a young age to speaka the good Engrish.
* Name has been changed to protect the identity of the individual involved... c'mon now... if you talked about delicious "tastes" and playing "slots", wouldn't you want a little privacy?
1 comment:
Your Engrish is bery bery good! Poor Chen. I spent alot of time sounding like an idiot in Japan-- but it mostly won me "cuteness" points-- as in "Look at that American trying so hard to speak Japanese-- how cute!"
I'm SO glad I already know English-- learning it would stink!
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