Sunday 23 December 2007

Why speak English when I can speak Engrish?

I am born in South-Korea and came to Australia when I was 16.
As you can imagine (or at least you can tell) that I still struggle to grasp the language of Australia, English. I am not very self-assertive person, nor very out-going. In fact, I am very introverted, reflective, and introspective.

This personality of mine plays on how I speak in English time to time. At times, when I am with people I am not quite comfortable with, I struggle much more than usual to speak in English. Pronunciations that I am familiar enough normally around my close friends become much more challenging when I am at some unfamiliar place or even at work. I forget the phrases I know, and stuff up the grammar I am used to.
When I make a mistake, I feel embarrassed, and it makes me even less confident about how I speak, then I speak even less and struggle more and end up making more mistakes. Such goes the vicious spiral downwards...

But, when I think about it, I don't really need to be self-conscious and feel embarrassed. It probably will help me to be a bit more light-hearted about it and laugh when I make mistakes or someone points them out.

So, here's what I'll do on my blog.
Time to time, when I make a mistake speaking in English, I'll post it up here.

and... first of such posts, here it goes...


Few days ago, actually, it was a few weeks ago now... (I saved this post a while back) I was at work, and was talking to another programmer, Nick. We were discussing a programming issue we had been trying to resolve, and decided to talk to another programmer/supervisor, Dan. When I checked to see if he was at his desk, he wasn't, and I said to Nick, "eh... maybe later, he's not on his desk."

!!!

'on his desk???'

I felt my face warming up.
'He's not AT his desk, not ON!'

All these 'at', 'on', 'in', 'by', and such words always confuse me.

Well, my good work colleague did not say anything about my statement, but just understood what I meant and didn't make me feel more embarrassed. Thanks, mate!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I totally understand,, I do those a lot more.. You can imagine how much I struggled then and struggle now. I came here when I was 25!!! ANYWAYS, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! :)