A Tribute To My Attributes
I can't speak fluent English anymore. I can WRITE fluently in English, because I can take time to think about the words and fix the ones that are wrong*. But speaking? I suck at speaking right now. I didn't even realize how much I sucked at speaking until my friend Renee had a friend visitor from America, and he was super cute and we were having a nice conversation during which I said about 10 times, "I can't remember how to say it in English." Charming. No really, catch me a year ago, I knew how to talk about complicated things then, I swear! Oh well. (I also never noticed how many straight-up Chinese words I use now even when speaking English, until I was speaking to someone who doesn't know them.)
When I do speak English, I'm speaking to my students or to other volunteers who also right now suck at speaking English, and we don't notice that we are using 'Special English' English-- that is, English without complicated words. But speaking to a native speaker? Forget it. I sound like one of the characters on Sesame Street. And not one of the human ones. I had to laugh the other day because I was having a conversation about oldest and youngest children and I said something about taking-charge being "a tribute of oldest children." And neither of us noticed immediately that I said anything wrong.
So I'll go on calling lacquer 'liquor' and attributes 'tributes' and my teapot a 'hot water maker.' And when I'm back home and I accidentally say something to you in Chinese, just nod and smile. I'll get over it soon enough.
*I hope I catch them all.
When I do speak English, I'm speaking to my students or to other volunteers who also right now suck at speaking English, and we don't notice that we are using 'Special English' English-- that is, English without complicated words. But speaking to a native speaker? Forget it. I sound like one of the characters on Sesame Street. And not one of the human ones. I had to laugh the other day because I was having a conversation about oldest and youngest children and I said something about taking-charge being "a tribute of oldest children." And neither of us noticed immediately that I said anything wrong.
So I'll go on calling lacquer 'liquor' and attributes 'tributes' and my teapot a 'hot water maker.' And when I'm back home and I accidentally say something to you in Chinese, just nod and smile. I'll get over it soon enough.
*I hope I catch them all.
Comments
I am sure it will take some time when you get back home, but it is quite humorous to us.
Seriously, I'll have you speaking Spanglish in no time!
My speech actually changed by the end of the day into a much more stilted form, emulating the "short to the point" structure of the scripts I had been writing.
And I honestly could feel the "thought process" when I was constructing a sentence be different.
It is a pity, that now I can not express - there is no free time. But I will return - I will necessarily write that I think.
And you et an account on Twitter?