Monthly Archives: September 2010

30 Sep

Let’s boogie

Who taught : Pat and Alex

Korean ladder game (source: Daniel's facebook)

How many times have you had to decide who is going to do what in your life? So many times, right? For example, who will be making a presentation for your team project? There is a great solution for this!

Let me introduce one of the greatest games you can enjoy to decide who will be “it.” It is called the ladder game. In Korea, people play this game to decide who is going to pay how much for food or snack. Especially, when it is summer, people in offices play this game to decide who will pay for ice creams and who will go and get the ice creams.

Here is the rule.

Preconditions : There has to be multiple people. The more, the better. And, people should agree to pay money or do anything came out of the game. There is no way back.

1. Grab a paper. It should be big enough to draw bunch of lines.

2. Draw vertical lines as many as players. (The lines should be quite long enough to be able to enjoy the game.)

3. At the top of the lines, put numbers, starting from 1, of course.

4. At the bottom of the lines, put different amount of money that the players should pay. (Here, you can also select one line as an indicator for a delivery guy.)

5. Now, you draw bunch of horizontal lines randomly here and there, connecting the vertical lines. (The most important thing here is you should draw a lot to make the game really interesting and make it hard to find out what number will end up landing in what amount.)

6. Cover the whole drawings and players randomly choose numbers corresponding to the numbers written at the top.

7. Now, number by number, we follow the lines from the top to the bottom to find out who is paying how much and who is doing the delivery.

It is really really popular in Korea and I can guarantee that it is really fun to play. People are so excited about it. I think this is the game that exists only in Korea but not sure. Can anyone from other countries tell me if you have this or a similar game?

Today, I went to Denny and Patrick’s farewell party. It was their last day at the company that I used to work. It was great seeing all of my friends again. After the party, I went into the office to help Pat out to move his box over to his car. As we started to walk out of the office, holding the box, he suddenly said, “All right! The last day! Let’s boogie!” I did not get it. So, I said, “Hey! What did you say? Boogie?” Alex said, “Terry! You do not know what that is?”

From the context, it sounded like, “Let’s get out of here!” Well, I was right. Boogie is originally a type of music and it became to the word people use when they dance to Boogie music. Then, for some reason, people decided to use this word to mean walking. Not sure how it became to mean this. Does anyone know?

But, it sounds very interesting and kind of pleasant. So, next time, try to say “Let’s boogie!” instead of saying “Let’s go!”

28 Sep

It is all greek to me

All Greek to me (source:www.fantasticfiction.co.uk)

Back in my previous work, I had to do a lot of conference calls with clients. There were also many chances for me to conduct customized trainings to clients. Most of the stuff I talked about was, of course, related with how the search engine works or how to configure or customize search applications. Fot that purpose, I had to talk a lot about a few programming languages. Most of the people who have computer science background were totally fine with those stuff. But, there were also many times that the people in the client’s side have no CS background. I found that it was very challenging.

One day, I was having a conference call in which I basically did two hours training using web meeting. There were around 4 or 5 people from the client. And, many of them did not have any CS background. I tried really hard to convey the knowledge effectively but it was still challenging.

So…. at one point, one of the people from the client asked me a question. I tried to give some examples to help her to understand better. And, she was able to understand it. Then, she said, “Thank you for explaining it again, giving me a good example! Now, I can understand. Before, it was all Greek to me.”

Hearing her saying, I knew what she meant. But, I thought it is an expression she made up and I moved on to the next slide. About 30 minutes later, I talked about something and she did not understand again and asked me another question. At the end of my answer, I remembered the expression she used and thought it would be good to use a similar expression but a little bit differently to her. So, I said, “Is it clearer now? Hope it is not all Latin to you anymore.”

Interestingly, they did understand what I meant and moved on and the meeting was done. Then, a few weeks later from the meeting, I heard another person, saying the same expression she used, “It is all Greek to me.” Then, I realized that it must be one of the expressions in English people use a lot. So, I searched the expression. And……. There it is. It is an expression American people use. Duh! I hit my forehead, talking to me, ‘they must have thought that I am so weird using Latin instead of Greek.’

What do you think? Is this expression weird? “It is all Latin to me!”

Here is the definition of the expression.

I do not undertand any of it. It does not make sense to me.

So…. when are you going to use this expression? You can totally use this one when doctors explain what is going on with your body. Don’t you agree?

What if you understand things someone says? You can say, “I get it!” or “I get that!” You can use this one when I explain how to develop applications. 🙂

My question is why it is Greek, not Latin or Hebrew or even like Korean?

26 Sep

English pronunciation

Who taught : Andrew, Jake, James and Carl

There is a new tv show started last week. It is called, “Outsourced.” I love it. It shows a lot of cultural differences between America and India. You should really try to watch it and let’s talk about it later.

Do you know what file type I hate most? It is zip file.

Do you know why? Well… it is so hard to pronounce. A few months ago, I was having a meeting with a client and there were James, one of my old coworkers, and Carl, my old boss. After the meeting, I went into Carl’s room to have another meeting and, at the end of the meeting, he taught me how to pronounce zip correctly. And, interestingly, when James and I had brunch together last Saturday, he mentioned about his feeling about my pronunciation of zip file. It is actually kind of frustrating to have the feeling that I would never be able to have a correct pronunciation for some of the alphabets or words.

There are a few other alphabets or words that are hard to pronounce correctly. (Here, I mean really correctly like Americans, not like mimicking the sound!)

1. v and th

A lot of Koreans, or Asians, pronounce this incorrectly so that many American people think we are saying “b” instead. For example, when you are looking for a “vase” but if you pronounce it incorrectly, then it becomes “base.” The other example is any word having “th.” More specifically, if you trying to say that you are “thinking” now but, if you say it incorrectly, then it becomes to mean that you are “sinking” now. Then your American friends would be like, “to where are you sinking down?”

2. wood

This one looks pretty easy to pronounce but it, in fact, is very hard to pronounce correctly. Jessy has a friend who came to the U.S. around 20 years ago when she was around 25 years old. She has children who of course are native English speakers. One time, she had a conversation with her children and she said “wood.” As soon as she said that word, her children said to her, “Mom, that is not correct. Say it again!” So, she tried again and again but still the pronunciation was not correct. You know what happened eventually. Her children said, “Mom! You are never gonna be able to pronounce it correctly at all.”

How frustrating it is! Remember! She has been living in the U.S. for 20 years. 20 years!

3. Square or Squirrel

Well, I had a very similar experience with what Jessy’s friend had. I live in a neighborhood, called Squirrel Hill, in Pittsburgh. One time, I was talking about this neighborhood to Andrew and Jake. As soon as I said it, they were like, “Terry! What? Say it again!” So, I kind of realized that I spoke it incorrectly and tried really really hard to pronounce it correctly. Then, they said, “That is pretty good. Before, it was not correct.”

Then, a few days ago, I was talking about something and I said “Square Root” to Andrew and Jake. Then, they were like, “Hey! Terry! Say it again?” Yeah, they challenged me again. So, I tried again. Andrew and Jake! How was I? Do you think I need more practices? I guess so, right?

So, as a non-native English speaker, what is the hardest word or alphabet for you to pronounce? I think mine is “Z” alphabet and any word having it like Zoo or Zip. The real hope I have now is I wish I can speak those ones really good so that no one can recognize me as a non-native English speaker. There must be some ways to practice. Does anybody know how to practice to pronounce those alphabets correctly?

23 Sep

when in Rome

Who taught : Carol

When in Rome (source: eternallycool.net)

Do you know what is one of things that non-native English speakers have a hard time to catch or understand? It is number.

For example, phone number! Living in the U.S., it is inevitable to make many phone calls to talk to customer services of any company. I remember I had to make phone calls to Comcast to talk about my Internet service’s monthly charge when I first got here. They talked about numbers like my plan and monthly charge and told me other phone numbers to which I need to make phone calls. It was so hard for me to catch all of the numbers they were mentioning. So, I thought about it, asking me, “Why is it so hard? And how can I get better?” And, I realized that I was thinking in Korean. For instance, every time I went shopping and see price tags, I was speaking the prices in Korean in my mind. To fix that issue, I decided to think every number in English. One of the hardest numbers is my credit card number. So long to think in English. 🙂

But, that is not the only thing to think in English. If you want to be able to speak English well enough to have conversations in business context, you should speak pretty fast. Even with the situation that you are just hanging out with your friends, you should be able to speak English fast. If not, it is hard to be involved in conversations. So, HOW can you speak English faster? The answer is easy. You gotta think in English in your daily life. Even better, you want to dream in English. Now, let me give you a tip! Start with number. Try to count phone number, card number and address, etc. in English. Then, try to spare some time like 10 or 20 minutes every evening and rewind your day in English. Let me give you my example!

This morning, I had an waffle made by Jessy. It was good. After breakfast, I went to school to teach students. Oh… I stopped by a Starbucks to grab a coffee. How about lunch? Subway foot long sub is too much for me. I could not finish it at all. I wonder how my American friends can finish it. They must have bigger stomachs. 🙂 Walking with Jessy after dinner was good. The weather today was so awesome. The end!

How is it? So simple, isn’t it? It is like an elementary school student’s diary. You can do this. As President Obama said, YES WE CAN! I can guarantee that the more you think in English, the faster your English would be. I am not talking about correct grammar here. To be honest, when it comes to speaking English, grammar does not really matter. The point is ability to communicate. You should practice English so that you can communicate with your friends.

I met a lot of non-native English speakers in America who have lived really long enough to be able to speak English well but actually not. You know why? It is simple. They have not practiced English. Some of them do not even want to practice at all. Well, they say “When in Rome.”

The full expression for “when in Rome” is “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” But, you would rarely hear the full expression. Again, we need to speak faster. 🙂 You can use this one in any situation that most of the people around you do the similar thing. Suppose that you went to a party where all of the people drink beer, then you might say to the host, “I want to drink wine but when in Rome. Let me have a beer.”

My friends out there! From today, let’s practice to think in English! That will make a big difference.

21 Sep

Nickel and dime

What is quarter?

The answer is 1/4 or 25%. Then, what is the quarter of 1 dollar? That is right. It is 25 cents. People in the U.S. and Canada call 25 cents quarter. In fact, you would hardly hear 25 cents. They mostly call it quarter.

United States coin (source: wikipedia)

How about 1 cent? Penny. (I do not know where this is from. Does anybody know?)

How about 5 cents? Nickel. (This is because the coin is made from nickel alloy. It used to be made from silver but then there was a shortage of silver so that it was changed to nickel alloy.)

Shall we keep going? 10 cents is dime. (It is because this coin is the smallest in diameter.)

A dollar is a buck. This one’s etymology is pretty interesting. So, buck is male deer. In 1856, people stated to use this word to mean dollar because buckskin was used as a unit of trade between Indians and Europeans. And, they dropped “skin” from “buckskin” as they use.

One grand is 1,000 dollars.  Some people also call it “large” or “stack.” Well, the word grand itself means basically large. And…..Back then, 1,000 dollars was a large sum of money and thus people call that amount large or grand. Now, people still call 1,000 dollars “grand.” Besides, it is really easier and faster to say “one grand” instead of saying “one thousand dollars.” You would hear this one a lot in the United States too.

Out of all there slangs, you know which ones are the hardest ones to distinguish each other. They are nickel and dime. But, if you can remember that dime is the smallest in diameter and know that 10 cents is the smallest coin, you can distinguish them better.

But, very interestingly, there is an expression called, “nickel and dime.” For example, if you have any customer, trying to get as much as possible from you without paying a lot. You can say like, “He has a tendency to nickel and dime. So, you better be careful with him.”

Here is the definition :  Cause seemingly hidden ongoing expenses which, over time, add up to a large expense.

Have you ever looked at the United States coins closely? If you do, you can find the following two expressions.

1. E pluribus unum : It is Latin for “Out of many, one.” and this is a motto of the United States. You can find this one on the seal of the United States too.

2. In God we trust : Until this became the official motto of the United States by law in 1956, “E pluribus unum” was recognized as the motto of the United States. Now, this is the official motto of the United States.

I guess these could be one of the questions that would be in the U.S. citizenship exam? It is just amazing how much I can learn, writing posts for my blog.