English is tough stuff
Originally uploaded by: shadowbox
People often say I should go into interior designs or singing (I got a thick head, I know!), but eversince I started blogging, I prefer to focus on being a writer (yes being a mediocre!). Infact I can sing, yes I do that on Karaoke’s, but at the same time, I can’t write. I don’t know how to be humble but I thought I sucked big time. It’s genuinely true that practice makes it perfect, so I try to read other non-personal blog and see if I could absorb words from it.
Apparently, I’m stucked at questioning myself, “what for?” If I’d try to write like them, copy their style then consider that plagiarism. Many times these poseur would slap your skinny ass so hard and put you into scrutiny in public. I don’t understand now who writes original? If I say “FOOK” because somebody else has already used it, is that bad? Well it’s a common knowledge that if you give a credit to that person who wrote that certain words or subject, most likely it should be okay with me. So which means, “hey, you know what, I like the way you say WTF, can I copy that”?
Few times back and as it is today, people would still give a big announcement about plagiarism. I realized that everyone of us should be aware that one way or another, original content can still be stolen in the world wide web, it’s not easy to determine that your journal are safe (I’d rather not publish it). I don’t think I’ll go back and search every words I say just to catch a thief. I believe my blog is just a typical conversational day-to-day words, too personal and I’d rather not give a big deal if you steal my underwear and tell the whole world that you are a better person than anybody else. And since english is my second language, just let me know if I have mistakes here and there. I always listen to other people’s opinion correcting my mistakes unless you’re the right person to even correct that. But you are not allowed to correct me (WTF attitude!).
But I do find it hard to communicate with other friends who speaks english fluently in person. Question is, does your blog-writing really speaks the way you talk in person? Forgive me for being judgemental but I find other blogs that appeared to be “too hard” to understand (thank you Webster for the words definition) and your response would be, “then fook, don’t read it” (damn, I’m eating my own words again) but eventhough I’m a fan of people who writes well, in a sense to learn, I still think english is a tough stuff. Oftentimes I had this fear of one day my other friends (well some have already been reading this blog) would stumble upon here and say, “you don’t seem to sound like you’re the person I know in your blog”, what’s your reactions? Get lost!
My frustration in life is to be able to read and write or speak proper use of grammar and english. I used to think that Journalists or English major graduates are the only ones eligible in the University of Blog because they could easily come up with good writing. It is not easy however to just read books and pick up something from it unless there’s a need to really improve ‘public speaking’. Like I said, I just write simple words. I always have a problem with adjectives & past tense but when I read personal blogs with too much bizarre use of words, or seldom used, I find them a bit weird. My motto for this blog should probably be, I write as I speak so I can understand what I read and speak.
Below are some self-exercise words that I think you should try reading too. A friend forwarded this email to me and I keep reading it so loud and even recorded it myself to see if I’m pronouncing the words right.
If you’ve learned to pronounce every word in the following poem correctly, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. If you find it tough going, do not despair, you are not alone. Multinational personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization Headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language … until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months at hard labour to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse. Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you. With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak. Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation ’s OK. When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour. And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary; revise and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear. Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation-think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel. Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough- Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup.
I think my advice would be is to, GIVE UP!
Look Me Up
by: Blue Magic
Filed under: Blog Babble, Dailies, Internet | 36 Comments
Haha, K that is so very true. I don’t actually speak the way I write… No I don’t. If you ask me why, cos If I’m gonna write the way I speak.. it’s gonna be ugly. Haha.. you know how singaporeans speak don’t you? We call it “singlish”… additional words like ‘lah, lor,leh,hor’ damn… sounds very chinese like. Don’t like it one bit. But yeah, sad to say… I do speak like that sometimes. Singaporean.. can’t help it you know
But yeah, just to improve on my spoken and written.. that’s why I write the way I do at my blog.. though not ‘very’ good… it’s good enough for me.
Ps: On the previous entry, I do smack my kids… it’s hard not to. Soft approach doesn’t seem to work on kids these days.. too hyper. So with a bit of smack and nag.. things go fine at home, and that only for a short while.. sigh. *give up*
Yes I’m familiar with that. We Asians have this “accents” and you can tell right there which country you’ve come from. I remember you wrote funny posts from your old blog before, it sounds different now, I think, it’s more on a general patronage. Somehow you toned down your writing a bit since there are numbers of people already reading your blog.
I think few people who visited my old blog before didn’t like what I wrote about “blogging etiquette” similar to this one if you can remember. I was apalled when they called me “sarcastic”, the bastard even de-linked me right away. I thought this person was smart enough to make such a rude comment and although I didn’t make a fuss about it, this person stole my blogroll and started commenting on each of them. You can easily pleased me but I hate being attacked personally, hehehe.
What I’m saying is, when you correctly say croquet, rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, it is also mean like friend and fiend, alive and live. Hahaha just trippin’.
How was Mother’s Day? Glad you nagged at your kids, hahaha do it when necessary they’ll get used to it and when they get older, it will remind them of YOU – story will never end right here.
your entry made me think. do i actually write like i speak? probably not. because although i am fluent in english, i’d be caught speaking more taglish mixed with gay linggo like “chuva”, “chorvah”, “chika”, “ook ak” and “eklat”. the few times you’d catch me speaking straight effortless english is when i’m (1) intensely angry, (2) going through an over-rehearsed presentation and (2) trying to have a conversation with a foreigner. haha.
i must admit, working has led to the degradation of my english and presentation skills. i was better off at school, come to think of it.
happy mother’s day to your mama, btw
K my brain twisted speaking english greek bisaya and tagalog bit of french pidgin german
but i wheni write i stick to english
That’s funny with Pinoys, we create a lot of words and turned out really funny.
“(2) going through an over-rehearsed presentation” –
That I can’t do. I will be terrified, usually shaking & laughing at myself. I love talking with English (Britons) people, eh luv dee accent der that eh think really really is cute, so I sometimes copy them and exaggerate the accent.
. I think my bicol is better than english.
Thanks dez, happy mother’s day to your mom too. I was on the phone when it suddenly disrupted because of typhoon. We are expecting cyclones in the next few days.
SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA* Ok I miss you there.
Pidgin English is very much used in Asia. LIke Asha said, Singaporean speaks with the “lah” after a word. I also get to use and speak English in a Cantonese accent that applied to most words. There’s always a communication problem there somewhere if you speak proper English.
I can relate to the bisaya talking too, my sis-in-law is bisaya and I can understand or talk, kadyut lang. My english seems to rub off if I stay for a length of time in the Island province, usually I peppered it with the local words.
Happy Mother’s Day to you… is that OK to say?
I think you write pretty well, K. Sure there are a few conjugation errors but who doesn’t make them from time to time? I believe by being personal and everyday in your writings, you blog from the heart and people want to join in a conversation with you. People who write too complex miss that human interaction.
I think having an accent is a good thing: who wants to sound like a standardized radio announcer?
Now that’s a complimentm Jack. Thank you.
As people who comes to read here, they probably discover a quick glance about myself. What does one’s definition of blog reveal about one’s attitude, beliefs, values or class?
I guess the key is, write from the heart. Well text are enjoyable to read, but I think I should really take it seriously,for they tell us in their own way a lot about ourselves & our society.
guess for me i mix how i speak when writing and also what i was taught in the school of journalism …
it’s more relaxed and easy to read if you just make your entries like the way you speak … but sometimes when i do that i feel that something’s lacking … ay ewan ko ba basta write na lang tayo ng write!
I wish I studied in Manila, in UP maybe but since I love to be in BICOL and we din’t have much datung for my dorm sa Manila, I din’t leave and studied in medical school nearby (mura lang tuition nun pero sa akin mahal na yun) kasi it was “popular” daw for going abroad infact it sucks to the bones. Eto nakulong ako dito sa HK sa ibang trabaho napadpad.
Kaya hindi ata ako natuto masyado, gusto ko pa naman maging journalist. hehehehe. Check on my latest entry, I tried it for fun.
I think if your heart wants to write something serious, by all means do so. But when you feel a sense of levity, let that come through, too. Blogs only work if they reflect all facets of the human personality: happy and sad, high and low.
What I mean is that if posts are serious all the time, regular visitors might not enjoy it. Like a movie, you need relief as well as action, in my view.
Hmmmnnn… I actually write how you would imagine me talk. Nothing fancy, just plain simple words and me.
It’s hard to wrap your emotions in many words. Sometimes, it comes out in a different form.
This is the reason why I try to keep my thoughts and writing simple.
Why complicate things di ba?
I’ve read blogs where the authors could not even write a clear sentence in english but they got their message across.
I agree on that Jack, that’s why I categorized my posts and put a bit of fun in it. It’s the way I speak, (the blog title speaks for itself). Clearly, I am a person who suffers from a lack of ego. I mean really, if I already felt better about myself, I wouldn’t have to do this. I guess I sounded like I am too constipated and jealous, isn’t it?
“This is the reason why I try to keep my thoughts and writing simple. Why complicate things di ba?”
I totally agree, we think so alike Princess, so I stick reading personal blogs that entertains me. And considering that my attractions to this whole diary life, is writing in communities of people who are writing about their lives, real or not, I realized that writing has become my best friend throughout this blogging experience.
It leads me to remember how amazing it is to know that some of us relate to life. There are many of us, including yourself. Yes, imagine, I’m not the only one.
Did you try the exercises?
I can imagine you as a spoke person for communication via internet. tipong touching lives yung slogan. hahahaha
yes I tried the exercises. lalo akong inubo! di ko tinapos. I had to drink my meds after!
the writing rules i learned in journalism are almost always thrown out the window when i write on my blog. i find it easier, and faster (i hate it when i lose my thoughts when i’m trying to be creative about it), to write what’s on my mind, even if it doesn’t make sense!
keep up the writing! write from your thoughts, not how you think they should sound.
Sorry Princess, I thought it was ridiculous specially this part, “ally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key”. I would always cheat when it comes to playing scrabble, I din’t know “ay” is an english word? Now call me illiterate.
Gusto mo ng Pakwan?
Rho, considered myself your fan and thank you for being positive on this. I would try once in a while to really sound like myself, and I practice my conversation to this comments that’s why I reply to every single comments. I find it rather odd when I blog, my thoughts would work really fast early in the morning, this habit becomes addicting. I do not use notepad to write and rewrite the entry I write here and when I do, it was rather late to change that after hitting “publish”. I write lots of errors but it sure doesn’t fail me, the more I get mistakes, the better I perform well, at least I try to document myself and learn from it. Thanks for the input rho, I won’t give up on that.
hahahahaha!
di ako kumakain ng pakwan. lasang tubig kasi. may mangga ka ba dyan?
K, you sound human to me—someone who wishes to share a bit about his life with others. That’s generosity of spirit and it’s to be commended. In my mind, you should feel great about yourself for your blog reveals you to be a person of quality and depth.
I have actually improved my eating habit, I am now into FRUITS, now considered that eating productively. A friend gave me two tiny avocado, how gracious – maybe I’m just nice for a small bribery of letting them watched DVD’s in my flat, at least it keeps me busy that I’m not actually “alone”.
Gusto mo ng manggang hilaw? Masarap isawsaw sa shrimp paste, mabaho nga lang!
M’goi sai ley, Jack. I’m just liking a bit of attention over this, you know I do write when I’m caught in between my desk & would just write whatever comes out in my mind – I started to use a notepad now and write and rewrite them and if errors turned out bad, I would push it harder to write from the heart. I’m glad I’m not making you bored.
Not at all—your blog is one of my regular stops. Even the posts which I don’t comment on much, I still read. I kind of blog and comment between tasks, or to get my brain “woken up”.
How nice of you Mr Jack, I’m very well supported indeed. I’ve seen you around commenting to many blogs, you’re such a popular commenter over at coComment dint you know?
You’re very welcome. I can only be truthful. For some reason I’ve become known for commenting! Never thought I was a big commenter considering I didn’t think much of blogs when I first started in 2003 doing a post quarterly! I got interviewed about commenting as well, which surprises me.
Seriously, you’ve been so generous with the coCommenting and very consistent into replying each of the comments. I beleived there was some “misunderstanding” about the TOP commenters lists & I just thought those people really taking it too seriously. I’m surprised to even see myself on TOP – it wasn’t really my intention to increase my “popularity”, it’s just that I enjoy replying to comments & stick to some healthy *and funny conversations around here.
There was one gentleman who had a concern about the rankings at coComment, and it was a shame when he began inventing “facts” to attack me. But I think the majority of us just use coCo for what it is: a tool that helps us track comments, and I enjoy commenting here. CoComment has, however, been useful to meet new people—I would not have found your blog without it!
Really? What a shame! I’m surprised people would compete on this coCo thing. They should be grateful. I understand the purpose of this is to track our comments where we left them. I find this very very useful for my blogging.
“CoComment has, however, been useful to meet new people—I would not have found your blog without it!”
My thoughts exactly. I’m grateful to have you here Jack.
I know! The competition is silly. I said to this chap that I would be equally happy if the ‘Top Commenters’ page disappeared: it would make no difference to me. But meeting friends through surfing is a great thing!
I would probably named that person a loser. I’m sure that person thinks the same thing about me since I am also a regular commenter and since the service is free I’ll keep using it.
I refrained from calling him names but I did feel he was overly obsessed with the coComment tables.
By the way, you should look at enabling your blog so it can capture non-coComment-member posts. I believe there’s some new code for that now and it seems to work quite well at Cas’s Bright Meadow blog.
I think my free wordpress won’t allow javascripts. I tried it many times and been wanting to share the service here but the code failed to even work in the sidebar. I might post about this one day and tell my other friends to join as well.
That’s a shame. I can’t do a thing to the Blogger comments’ page, so it looks like I won’t be able to share coCo with people in this way, either.
That’s OK Jack, I can manage to disseminate information and make an entry of coCo.
I have been teaching in Korea for over 7 months now with WorknPlay http://www.worknplay.co.kr and I constantly hear a lot of variations when students start speaking English. Of course they’re still learning the language, and they’re trying hard so I don’t want to say they’re going to remain speaking that way. Anyways, with practice, you can certainly improve your English.
Thanks for the link!