Who taught : Kelly
As usual, Jessy and I took a walk this evening. During the walk, we saw two women walking along us, holding their hands. Well, we can simply tell they are together. I mean they are gays. Most of the time, if two people who are the same gender walk down streets, holding their hands, they are considered as gays. Maybe, it is 100% true. Am I right?
But, if you go to Korea and walk around, you will see a lot of ladies walking, holding their hands or arm-in-arm. 99% out of them are not gays. (Men would never do that. If you see any two guys, holding their hands, in Korea, they must be gays too.) For some reason, the Korean women all do that. I do not know why. It must be a part of culture. Not sure whether it is Asian thing or Korean thing though.
So, if you take a trip to America with your friend who is the same gender as you, you should not hold your friend’s hand in America. People here in America will think you are gays. (I mean they would not really care about it but they will just think you are gays even though you are not.)
A few weeks ago, I think, Kelly added a comment on one of my posts in which she used an expression, “Ears are burning!”
Let me give you a situation that you can use this expression! During lunch time, some of my friends are sitting together, eating lunch, and, in the middle of the discussion, they are talking about me. But I am not there. (Hope they are talking about good things!
) A few minutes later, I show up and they say to me like, “Oh, hey T-Bone! We were just talking about you.” Then, I would be like, “Oh really? That is why my ears were burning. What did you talk about me?”
The definition of the phrase is as follows (source: wikitionary).
Said of somebody who was not present but was the topic of discussion.
Interesting thing is we, Korean, do have a very similar expression. We say, “귀가 간지럽다 (Gui-Ga-Gan-Ji-Reop-Da).” The literal translation is “My ears are itchy.” Our feeling of the expression is like, if so many people talk about me, then all of the sounds will come into my ears and that makes them itchy. But, I guess, for American, the word BURN should have that kind of feeling, right? Very interesting!



Catch me if you can on
square vs hip vs sleek
Who taught: Andrew
AVAILABLE
So.. this is one of the words that can be used in so many occasions. Suppose you just get into a cafe and try to find a seat to sit. After a few looks, you spot one chair but someone is sitting on the chair next to that chair. And, you would like to make sure whether you can really sit on that chair or not, then how would you ask to the person? That is right! Simple! “Is this available?”
Another example would be in your biz email. You want to have a meeting with your client or customer but are not sure whether he/she can make it to the meeting at a specific time. What would you use in your email? That is right! Simple! “Are you available at 11:00 am on Tuesday? Please let me know your availability! blah blah….”
Now! You, assuming you are a woman, find me who is with friends at a bar and decide to go for me. “Hi, there! Nice to meet you! My name is Jessica!” At this point, everybody knows that you are trying to flirt with me. Then, what would you hear from my friends? That is right! Simple! “Hey, Lady! T-Bone is not available! He is married.”
I mean you can use this word in so many situations. I guess this is too easy for you. But, the reason why I bring this word up is because I would like to talk about the difference between English and Korean. All of the above cases, we, Korean, use totally different words. For instance, we use the expression, “품절남(Pum-Jeol-Nam)”, to describe a married man. Literal translation would be “He is out of stock!”
The hardest part for Korean people or any other non-native English speakers is that it takes a long time to realize that they can simply use “available” in so many situations because every time they try to speak something, then they think in Korean or their mother tongue first and try to translate it into English. This is one of the main reasons why non-native English speakers say so many sentences which do not make sense at all.
Square Face(source:gocomics.typepad.com)
Well… Let’s talk about today’s expression!
Can you guess what this means? Hard to understand, right? Does it mean the shape of his body is square or the shape of his face is square or the shape of his but is square? What the heck does it mean?
Well, here is the definition on urban dictionary.
In other words, someone who is not cool. Now, what is the word to describe someone who is cool. Right! You can use “COOL” but there is also another one, “HIP.” So, if you see someone who is very in touch with current trends. You can say like “You are so hip!” to him/her. He/she will love it. What about to your male friend who is very fashionable, especially by wearing a suit? Then you can say, “You are so sleek today!” I am not sure whether you can use this one to female friends. I feel like you cannot. Hope my feeling is correct! (If I am correct, that means I am getting closer to become an American??
)