English for Foreign Speakers 101

I never thought I would be in a position to teach someone English, especially if something like this occurred to me just yesterday...

jal5eva (17:49:37): so u want how?
stupiddiverboy (17:49:57): i want how?
stupiddiverboy (17:50:04): what kinda english is that?
jal5eva (17:50:44): sucky english lor
jal5eva (17:50:51): me brain spoil liao le
jal5eva (17:51:02): cannot think straight le lor

So, my English was slammed by someone yesterday, could I today instead teach someone else English? Apparently the answer is yes cos the person whom I taught is a foreign speaker. To a foreign speaker, Joan with her 20 years of knowledge of the English language is a master.

My student? Someone who picked me up from MSN messenger. Kind of sad...

It's a Saturday afternoon and it's raining. Joan can't go shopping in the rain cos she's too lazy to carry an umbrella and she doesn't like the rain to ruin her clothes and hair and hat and shoes and whatever that's on her. It can rain some other time as long as Joan's not going shopping. So, since it was raining and I had nothing better to do other than hang out online, and my friends are ignoring me cos they are busy, so when this weird guy came by I decided to entertain myself for a while. It was pretty entertaining, and ego boosting. Especially when my ego was burst by that stupid guy yesterday.

I am pretty proud of my English actually. After all the memorising of grammar tables and weird stuff, and being able to differentiate writing styles and accents of different sorts of English, I'm still not bad an English speaker, I think.

Lesson 1: Hot

[] Colin .. says:
It's hot.
- xxoos - says:
what is hot?
- xxoos - says:
what is it that is hot?
[] Colin .. says:
hot means very high degree.
- xxoos - says:
yes
[] Colin .. says:
temperatue.
- xxoos - says:
what is it that you are talking about is hot?
- xxoos - says:
not temperature
- xxoos - says:
temperature is high
- xxoos - says:
the weather is hot

This somehow reminds me of the "Mir ist heißt." and the "Ich bin heißt."

Lesson 2: short forms

- xxoos - says:
omg=oh my god
- xxoos - says:
wtf=what the fuck
- xxoos - says:
but dont use it on me

Somehow, one of the first few things one can learn about the language is the vulgarities. I mean, you can not understand Hokkien but you definitely know how to say kaninabeichaocheebye, right? And this also reminds me of "Ich habe ß gelernt." Scheißer. pretty sad, but that's how the earth rotates.

Lesson 3: yeses and nos

- xxoos - says:
yup
[] Colin .. says:
I don't know 'yup'?
- xxoos - says:
yup=yes

- xxoos - says:
nope
[] Colin .. says:
what's mean nope
- xxoos - says:
nope=no

Luckily the "ja"s and the "nein"s are not as complicated as the "yup"s, "ya"s, and godknows what. What I didn't understand was more of the use of "nie". I thought it was "never" but not everyone uses it that way. "doch"s are another complicating matter, but I think I'm getting the hang of the "doch"s already. "Nein" "Doch" "Nein" "Doch"... lol~

Lesson 4: articles

[] Colin .. says:
How is weather?
- xxoos - says:
how is the weather?
[] Colin .. says:
How is the weather?
- xxoos - says:
the weather is singapore is very hot and humid
- xxoos - says:
but today it is raining

[] Colin .. says:
my job is developer
- xxoos - says:
is a developer
[] Colin .. says:
a .
[] Colin .. says:
okay

It's only "the" and "a" and he has problems with that. How can I not complain that I cannot cope with "der" "die" "das", "ein" "eine" "ein", and when there are such things such as akkusativ and dativ, "den" "die" "das", "dem" "der" "den", "einen" "eine" "ein", "einem" "einer" "einem". And I need to match the "der" "die" "das" correctly somemore!

Give a short background on this Colin guy. He's Korean and has been learning English for a couple of years. He's "envy" of me that my "English skill" is good, but he didn't take into account that I have been learning English ever since I was born. My first audible word uttered out of my mouth was "Papa", I spent two of my most formative years in England, I can write 2000 blog entries on hand like that, I speak English every day every hour, my brain processes in English. BUT my Chinese is also not that ba leh... And My Singlish also can make it one leh... So is it that I'm just smart? lol~

Actually I do admire his courage to want to know more English speaking people and take the initiative to converse more in English to improve. I'm not as hardworking as I think I should be, so maybe that's why my German is still quite cmi. Even after one year of studying and one month of immersing myself in the country, I'm still not getting quite the hang of it. Maybe I should emulate him and look for a German to converse with. Any Germans out there? Preferably someone who can correct my grammar, my German grammar sucks. Perhaps if there was something like grammar tables for me to memorise that might work?

This reminds me of once someone asked me when do I know how to use "I" and "me", I couldn't give an answer. I said it just sounds right. Then when I was in Germany, I asked a native speaker, my host's little daughter, when do I use "Ich" and "Mich", she gave me a look like I was from outer space. That's a difference between a native speaker and someone who's learning the language. Funny how these doesn't occur in Chinese.

Suddenly I've this urge to do EL1101E and CL1101E. wahaha~ I think I might have enough level 1000 mods to fit that around, maybe when I'm in dire need of UEs or exposures...