Life is taken over by school, once again, despite me not getting loaded up with homework for the first six weeks! Classes are always interesting and fun though, because of all the different opinions, insights, and cultural differences that come up in class. All our perspectives are different, according to where we were brought up.
People still acquiring English vocabulary often ask me what a word means, and I have no way of explaining it. Simple words like ‘flattery’, and ‘covet’ and ‘macho’, I have a hard time explain, simply because I feel as if they have always been in my vocabulary.
Native English speakers, from UK, and Canada even use words differently than Americans do, and also pronounce some of them so that they are unrecognizable to me. Especially in Biology, when my British teacher states terms that I WOULD know if she didn’t say them so weird! I have to think hard in some classes, when a teacher will say things like ‘albino’ (pronounced all-bee-no) and crisps, which means chips, chips which means French fries, and biscuits which means cookies. My new Aussie teacher tells us continually to ‘bob-down’, which means to sit down, although non-of us knew what to do the first time she told us to :P she was quite frustrated when we all just stood there blankly after she told us two different times to ‘bob-down’, and I finally just said ‘What does that mean?’. Hahah ohps! Apparently they only use that phrase in Australia, Ms. G! She also was pronounces spectators as spec-tah-tors. When the global news of Haiti was still in school talk, people called Haiti: Hi-Ay-tee. If I think of any other weird things I will try to remember them and right them down.
One of the more common silly disagreements which comes up often is whether it’s ‘football’ or ‘soccer’. Of course, it’s either way, but it’s a continual argument with the Europeans against the Americans, Canadians, Japanese, and Chinese. Even the Italians say that it’s soccer! Sorry Brits, but you lost this one! And there’s always the banana/ba-nah-nah, potato/pah-tah-to, tomato/tah-mah-to, and massage/mess-ahj (pronounced as almost two separated syllabus, as is garage/gay-rahj), burned/burnt, dreamed/dreamt, leaned/leant, learned/learnt, smelled/smelt, spelled/spelt, spilled/split, spoiled/spoilt, and many, many others. If I think of any other funny ones, I’ll add them to the list J
Whether you are saying words the ‘correct’ way or not, it’s fun and special for everyone to be able to say their OWN words and phrases, in their own unique accents! I really love hearing the way non-native English speaker put sentences together, or use funny words that we don’t usually. I also like hearing all the British, Scottish, and Australian phrases, like “blimey”, “mate”, “rubbish”, “quite nice”, “do I look bothered?”, “bloke”, “I can’t bother”, “yanks” (slang/insult to Americans, nice huh :P), “May I use the toilet?”, “bum”, pissed=drunk (not angry), boot=trunk of car, tart=prostitute, ice-lolly=popsicle, and icing sugar=powdered sugar.
Oh, and the phrase ‘full-stop’ means a grammatical period. Like what you put at the end of a sentence you know? And a ‘half-stop’ is a comma. Isn’t that funny!? When saying period out loud like in a sentence, it goes “You’re the prettier girl in school, full stop!”
Hope you guys are well. Not too great of weather these days, but I have a week off this next week, or a holiday, if you wish! Haha I was only on ‘holiday’ two weeks ago…life is good :P
