I'm feeling a little linguistically impaired these days because I spend all my time around non native speakers. My vocabulary is pared back to the words I can say in other languages so I'm sure to be understood. It's like baby talk, or talking to someone in a bar who you think might stab you if he realises you went to college.
It's funny what words we do learn; how to get to the post office, how to present our passports, how to order the duck with mashed potatoes, a little veg, and many very thank you Mister sir. Earlier I heard an Italian guy use his school-learned vocab about "the problems of drugs" to buy weed. Irony is a dish best served stoned and stuttering.
Realistically you need a different set of words to what you cram in high school. You need to know how to curse or you wont understand movies. You need to know how to say "hey!" in a way that doesn't sound like you're at an interview. You need to be able to flirt without sounding like a loved up teenager from an 80s romcom screaming "je t'aime" at a first story window and holding a stereo over your head.
I miss the blaze and glory of the English language, the colour and texture of good conversation, and being understood when I say something like "an intruiging interlocutor".
Show me to Australia's English department.
It's funny what words we do learn; how to get to the post office, how to present our passports, how to order the duck with mashed potatoes, a little veg, and many very thank you Mister sir. Earlier I heard an Italian guy use his school-learned vocab about "the problems of drugs" to buy weed. Irony is a dish best served stoned and stuttering.
Realistically you need a different set of words to what you cram in high school. You need to know how to curse or you wont understand movies. You need to know how to say "hey!" in a way that doesn't sound like you're at an interview. You need to be able to flirt without sounding like a loved up teenager from an 80s romcom screaming "je t'aime" at a first story window and holding a stereo over your head.
I miss the blaze and glory of the English language, the colour and texture of good conversation, and being understood when I say something like "an intruiging interlocutor".
Show me to Australia's English department.
