Monthly Archives: January 2011

14 Jan

ride the short bus

Who taught: Andrew, Jake, Carol and Jean

Have you ever walked any street in the United States? If you have and paid careful attention, you would have noticed that there are some differences between roads. Do you know what that is? It is the name of streets. As far as I know, there are 7 different names. They are Ave, St, Rd, Blvd, Pl, Ln and broadway. Broadway is kind of unique in a sense that it does not have any specific name. It is just broadway. Most of cities I have visited have this road but I do not think Pittsburgh has broadway. I have never heard of it in Pittsburgh. Anyways, the most common ones are Ave (Avenue), St (Street) and Rd (Road). On these, there are usually many traffic. Blvd (Boulevard) one is tricky. It is kind of hard to pronounce correctly. Why don’t you try it now? Do you think you can speak it correctly? Good for you!

You would not see Pl and Ln very often. They are usually narrow which means not that many cars are using those. Well, when I first saw those, I had no idea what they are. I actually pronounced Pl as “pai” because I thought “l” is not lowercase L but uppercase I. But, it is lowercase l and shortened one for Place. Ln is Lane. Are there any other ones? I cannot think of any but I am sure there are more.

Short bus (source: http://conorheffernan.com/)

Two times on weekdays, you can see so many yellow vehicles running around in the United States. They are school buses. Typical school bus is always yellow and pretty big and long. Here is one interesting fact related with school bus I found on Wikipedia.

Every school day, over 480,000 school buses transport 26 million children to and from schools and school-related activities.

This is very different from Korea. Most of students in Korea either walk or use public transportation to or from schools. Well, anyways, they look very simple but they do have many safety features including something related with seats. It is called compartmentalization. Google it up! You will find it very interesting.

A few months ago, my friends and I had dinner and they used an expression, riding the short bus, which I had no idea what they are talking about. This is of course related with school bus. As I said, typical school buses are pretty long but there are short ones too. Well, before I heard of this expression, I thought those short ones are just short because there are not that many students using the bus.

Well, it turns out that those short ones are mostly used to ferry students with special needs. So, if you are in that bus, then what? Well, I do not want to go too far and leave this to your imagination. You can use this expression to your friends when they say something dumb or do stupid things. But, this expression is derogatory so that I would not encourage to use it. Once again, it is good to know so that, if someone uses this to you, you can properly respond. If you know what I mean!! 🙂

12 Jan

brewski

Who taught : Holt (From Parenthood)

Parenthood (source: Wikipedia)

Gooder, More good, More big, More bigger, more happy

What are these? Well, as you can see, these are all wrong expressions. One of the difficult things in English is to use “more” or “-er” properly as the comparative form of adjectives. You may get away from mistakes with the comparative form in writing. But, it is easy to make a mistake when you speak. To refresh your memory, let me explain how to use the comparative form of adjectives correctly.

1. One syllable words form the comparative by adding -er or -est. (e.g : braver)

2. Two syllable words that end in -y, -le, and -er form the comparative by adding -er or -est (e.g  : happier, cleverer)

3. Words with more than two syllables form the comparative with more or most (e.g : more important, more beautiful)

Whenever I make mistakes with these, I feel like I am so dumb. I mean, this is one of the things I have seen in my English exams so many times. Yet, I still make mistakes, especially when I speak.

But, I would say, “Do not worry about it too much.” All of my friends understand what I am saying and, in fact, I have heard Americans using this in a wrong way too. Also, in a commercial that I have seen, they also use the expression, gooder, instead of better. It is too obvious that they use it intentionally but my point is everybody understands what it means. Many times, non-native English speakers are afraid of speaking English, worrying about making mistakes. Thus, they do not want to mingle with native English speakers. I would say, “Be brave! Go out and speak English as much as you can. That is the shortcut for you to get better and better in English.”

One of the TV shows I really love to watch these days is Parenthood. I would strongly recommend it. Its stories are about love and conflicts between parents and children. It is very touching. In last week’s episode, Drew Holt’s friend used one expression that caught my attention. He said, “Let’s have some brewskis.” From the context, I was able to figure out what brewski is. Also, if you know what brewery is, you would be able to figure out what brewski is. That is right. It means beer. According to what I found, one Canadian guy started to use this expression and became popular. But, I am not sure that is correct or not.

Having said that, here is today’s challenge for you! Why don’t you go to your American friend and say, “Hey dude! Do you wanna have some brewskis today?” And when you hang out with him/her, talk about how hard the comparative form in English is and ask some tips. Once again, to be able to get better and better in anything in the world, you have to be proactive and practice. It will get better slowly but be patient. Good luck!

10 Jan

drag your feet

Who taught: Al, Carl and Obama

refreshment room? (source: http://www.freefoto.com/)

Yesterday, at my church, Al talked about one word that I have known for a while. He was announcing an event and he said, “There will be refreshment after the event.” I am sure you know what the refreshment is here in this context. Just for those of you who might not know, it is light snack or drink provided at a public event. Al also talked about what are the things that can refresh your spirit or body. Well, yesterday, we sang songs and prayed. They were definitely very refreshing and I was so refreshed. As I think of this way, I got to really like the word, refreshment. You know what I thought about? I thought about the person who used this word to mean light snack or drink for the first time. I imagine that he/she had food like fruit and water after a long work or talk, then he/she said, “This food and drink are very refreshing. Really, these are refreshments for me. Let’s call these food refreshments from now on, shall we?” What do you think? I am very sure that is what happened and from that moment people started to call those food refreshments. I love this word a lot because we all need refreshments from time to time. Not just from food. It could be fresh air in the morning or everything depending on how you think. Hope you all find a lot of refreshments today and in your life.

A few weeks ago, I was watching news and President Obama was talking about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) policy. For your information, here is what DADT is.

the policy restricting the United States Military from efforts to discover or reveal the sexuality of closeted homosexual or bisexual servicemembers or applicants, while barring those who are openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual from military service. (source : Wikipedia)

More specifically, he was talking about a bill that was passed to repeal DADT. Even though the bill was passed, there are still procedures to be done to make it effective. In the interview, he said, “We will not drag our feet here.” As soon as I heard that, I remembered that Carl used the expression when he and I had meetings with customers in almost same way. Whenever I hear the word, drag, I think of computer mouse. I am sure you have a mouse and drag it every day, don’t you? Now, what if you think there is your feet on your desk and you drag your feet just like you drag your mouse. How would you feel? It feels very slow and just something that you do not want to do so that you intentionally do something very slow. Here is my famous question! CAN YOU FEEL IT? 🙂

Here is another challenge for you in 2011! Let’s not drag our feet and be proactive! You know what! If you do that, then you yourself could be refreshment to others. Excited? I am excited.

07 Jan

road signs

It is amazing how fast people can change.

Deer Xing (source: http://www.signs-up.com/)

When I first got to the U.S., I was very surprised by the fact that cars really stop, or at least close to stop, at stop signs. To be honest, I have never stopped at stop signs in Korea. As far as I remember, no one stops at stop signs in Korea. (I hope this has been changed.) Now, I do stop at stop signs here in the U.S. It is highly possible that you can get into accidents if you do not stop at stop signs in the United States because people drive assuming that all drivers would stop at stop signs.

Another road sign I found that it is very interesting to see here in the U.S is “No turn on red.” You would see this sign so many times in the U.S. When you see this sign, you CANNOT make even right turns when the red signal is on. This is not the case in Korea. It is possible to make right turns on red as long as there is no traffic coming through. So, my friends who are not in the U.S.! Please do remember these two signs so that you do not get into any trouble when you drive in the U.S. If you happen to violate any of these and get caught by Police, there is a simple trick you can do. Try to say, “Yesterday Korea, Today America,” with a very bad accent. I do not guarantee this would work for you though.

There are also so many road signs related with animals. Most of them are for deer. It mostly has a deer image but some of them has also text. It says “deer xing.” Well, when I first saw that sign, I knew what it is trying to warn but I did not know how to pronounce “XING” and also what it means. Can you guess? I believe you can. You are smarter than me. It is a shortened one for “Crossing.” I remember I also saw these signs in Korea but never really encountered any deer at all on the road. But, here in the U.S., you do need to be careful of deer when you drive. They are everywhere, especially at night.

Looking back, I realize that how much I have been changed. I do stop at stop signs and do not make right turns at no turn on red sign. And, I am very afraid of deer when I drive at night.

There are some other signs I also think very interesting. I will get back to those later. Have a good day, my friends!

05 Jan

got hosed

Who taught: Eric

Hosed (source: http://www.zazzle.com.au/)

Living in the U.S., every day and every moment is pretty much full of surprises. You should be really ready to hear and learn all of the new expressions that are not in any traditional dictionary at all. If you and your American friend who knows that you are a non-native English speaker are the only ones having a conversation, I can guarantee you would not hear those things. But, when you are one of many people and most of them are native English speakers, then there are surprises. If you are not physically in a country where there are bunch of native speakers, the best way you could hear these kinds of expressions is watching TV shows. One of the recent shows I would strongly recommend is 30 Rock. Also, I like watching Outsourced. It has very interesting stories about cultural shock and learning languages.

Let me talk about one of the experiences from which I heard a total new expression I had a few days ago. I am not sure I have ever told this but I love playing soccer. Well, apparently, I am a Korean. Korean people are in love with soccer. Every Monday, I play soccer with people whom I met in a league. Two days ago, I was there too. There were so many people so that many of us had to wait for a turn to play. Two people who came before me got into the game and it was finally my turn. As one guy who was playing came out, another person besides me suddenly got in before me. Well, it was too late for me to ask him to come out. So, I decided to wait for the next turn. At that moment, Eric said to me, “Terry! You just got hosed. You should just stick your nose in.”

I knew what he meant from the context. Especially, “sticking your nose in” part was easy. But, what the heck is “got hosed?” I have tried to find etymology of this expression out but no success yet. There is one scenario I can guess though. Hose itself means a flexible tube conveying water or other liquid. It could also be a verb to mean spray water with a hose. Thus, if someone hose you, then you will get wet which you do not really like unless it is really hot and that is what you want, right? Hey, my American friends! What do you think about my guess here? Am I right? For some reason, I have a bad feeling about this expression too. Sounds kind of dirty. Is my mind in the gutter?!? 🙂

More simply, “got hosed” is the same thing as “got screwed.” As I said in previous posts, it is easy to say, “OK.. that is easy. I think I know that expression now.” But, I would like to challenge you here. How many times do you think you would ever use this expression in the proper context? Why don’t you count it? That would be fun and it could motivate you to try to remember them to be able to use them later. Having said that, I just remembered one quote I heard from Today show. “People are goal-oriented. If there is a goal, there is a higher chance to achieve things. So, set your goal. The more specific a goal is, the better it is.”

Getting back to my story…. Funny thing is I got really hosed on that day. Why? Because I got injured. Maybe, Eric’s saying was foreshadowing?  🙁