babble mix

English 101

After over 2 years of talking to Americans during most of my waking hours, I must say I’ve caught up with them when it comes to speaking conversational English. I’m sooo far from being able to articulate exactly what I want to say at the time I want or need to say it (lalo na pag mga punch line) but at least my slang/conversational English is getting better (by my standard of better). Here’s what I learned:

• Retarded. Your shoelaces can be retarded, jackets can be retarded, hair can be retarded and of course YOU can be retarded. It’s like saying “parang ewan” – at least that’s how I interpret it when they say, “My jeans are just being retarded.”
• Word up! Could mean, “great” or “woohoo!”
• Tool. If that’s even the way it’s spelled (thanks to our PR manager who has mostly slang vocabulary when talking to us, that’s why I didn’t understand her half the time). Somebody’s a “tool” when he or she is worst than dumb or stupid. Something like, engot, I guess.
• “Pang-ilan” has no direct translation. I asked my American friends about it, and even they couldn’t think of a single word to say it, or even a sentence without a follow-up question. She said something like this, “What number is President Bush as the president of America? Is he the 20th?” So don't think you're stupid when you can't think of the English translation of "Pang-ilang anak ka nila?"
• Either and Neither. Because in Filipino, we say “din” whether we refer to something as positive or negative, we automatically translate it to “also” even if we refer to something negative. For example:
  A: I’m not going to the party.
  B: I’m not going also. – EEEE (buzzer sound). Wrong. “I’m not going either” is the correct way to say it or “Neither am I.”
  This took some time for me to absorb, and I still catch myself almost saying ALSO sometimes.
• Ikaw talaga! This sentence in Filipino can mean so many things in different contexts, but again has no direct English translation. It won’t make any sense to anyone of them here if you say, “you really!” They’ll just look at you with a big H-U-H.

I bet there’s a lot more that I’ll remember over the next how many days, weeks and months, and I will try to be faithful to my blog again and share them with you. For now, this is all I can remember. Till our next lesson.

Labels: english speaking

posted by meL @ 6:15 PM