Category Archives: From friends

As a non-native English speaker, it is fun to learn new English expressions from friends. I am not afraid of asking questions to my friends. Luckily, my friends are so nice that they always do their bests to explain to me. Thank you, all!

03 Jan

Cul De Sac

Cul-de-sac (source: http://legalplanet.wordpress.com/)

Happy new year, my friends! It is 2011. A new decade is ahead of us. I have a feeling that this year will be amazing for you and me. 2010 was also awesome for me. There were so many great things happened to me. One of them is of course this blog. In 2010, I started to write this blog in March and had written 172 posts. Thank you for your help and support, my friends and readers! Please feel free to write any comment, ask and answer questions! I am looking forward to continuously learning and hearing from you in 2011.

Hey, what are your new year’s resolutions? I am sure that one of them is Learning English or getting better in English if you are not non-native English speakers. Am I right? That is also one of mine. If not, you better rethink yours again to have a plan to be better in English. Without specific goals, you cannot achieve a single thing in the world. How about read my blog and add comment every time there is a new post? 🙂 I am sure it will help you. Don’t be shy! You can do it!

This year is the 10th year of my marriage. To celebrate, I have decided to buy a house. For the last 2 weeks, I have been searching for houses on the Internet and hired my real estate agent to see a few houses. Oh, here is one thing I learned related with buying a house in the U.S. To be able to see houses that are in the market, you need a real estate agent. Without them, you cannot see houses. Also, you need to be pre-approved by a mortgage-broker. Well, it is kind of complicated and I am still learning those things. But, I will get back to you about buying a house once I finalized buying one.

Looking for houses on the Internet, I found a new expression, Cul-De-Sac. A few houses put this word in descriptions.

It is located on convenient location and quiet Cul-De-Sac.

Cul-De-Sac literally means “bottom of bag” in French. Now, if you think the shape of a bag and imagine that is a road. What can you imagine? Yes, there is no through road at the end of the road. Instead, there is a round shape of dead end and there are a few houses around the round shape area. As you may imagine, it is good because there are no cars passing by and thus it is very quiet.

You would definitely want to have those kinds of houses or anything not located close to any major roads. Do you know why? I would say it is because of ambulances. They make really really loud sounds as they pass by. You would have hard time sleeping. 🙂

Now, can you pronounce Cul-De-Sac properly? Here is today’s task for you! Why don’t you find out how to pronounce this correctly by searching or asking your friends? I would recommend to ask your friends. Good luck!

Once again, happy new year!

PS: I don’t know why. But I have a bad feeling that cul-de-sac could mean something else, something bad. Am I right, my friends? Hope not!

22 Dec

Chivalry is dead

Who taught : Alex and Sangeetha

Chivalry is dead? (source: http://www.motifake.com/)

It is inevitable to experience so many different things by moving to another country. What is the most difficult thing to live in America as a Korean? I would say, it is English, English and English.

1. First of all, English itself is hard to master. Pronunciation, Vocabulary, Slangs, Listening… You name it. There are so many things to continuously practice and it is never ending.

2. And, because of English, it is hard to make American friends. Let’s face it! It is really hard to have a conversation for a long time in just English if you cannot listen and speak fast enough. Honestly, I used to have a headache after a long party with my American friends or a long conference call with customers. This then can definitely affect your work or study.

3. Due to the reason number 2, it is hard to learn new cultures. This creates a vicious circle. If you do not have many American friends, then you usually stay with people who came from the same country you are from. In my case, it is Korea. Then, you lose your chance to learn new cultures and, thus, you feel awkward to be surrounded by American people. As a result, your English cannot get better at all and you do not have any American friends and you do not learn American cultures.

Now, what is the solution? Well, there is only one thing I can say here. WHEN IN ROME! You should really be proactive to make as many American friends as possible and learn new cultures from them. You should also be honest. If you do not understand what they are saying, feel free to ask them. They will help you out.

Speaking of culture… When Jessy and I first moved here, she and I often took a walk after dinner. Talking about trees, animals and houses, we had fun. (FYI, there are squirrels, deer, and rabbits all over here.) But, something bad also happened. 🙂 She saw a guy opening a car door for a lady. I tried to ignore it. (As far as I know, guys in Korea usually do not do that for a lady.) But, she was like this is the time I need to say something. “Hey.. look at that. Don’t you think you need to do that for me? You never done that,” said she. Oh great….

Last Saturday, Jessy and I had lunch with Alex and Sangeetha. After lunch, the server came with checks. Sangeetha said, “You can give them to the guys.” Following it, Alex said, “I guess chivalry is not dead.” I did not get it.

So, chivalry itself refers to the medieval institution of knighthood. And it is often associated with ideals of knightly virtues, honor and of courtly love. For your better understanding, here are the examples of chivalry.

1. Open a car door for a lady or open a door of any place like a mall for a lady.

2. Pay for a lady’s meal

Now, if it is dead, it of course means no one would do it any more. Researching about this expression, I found a lot of arguments about whether chivalry is really dead or not on the Internet. There are some people who say women killed it because of feminism movement. What do you think? Is chivalry really dead? I guess it is a very subjective matter to answer, though. Let me put it this way then? Is chivalry dead in your marriage? Hope not!

15 Dec

come hell or high water

Who taught: Andrew and Eric

Come hell or high water (source: http://www.noiset.com/)

It is 8:40 am on Dec 15, 2010 (Wed). According to weather.com, it is 16°F (-9°C). But, there is another degree you need to look at when it comes to the current temperature. It is “feels-like” degree which is the degree people really feels like because of wind, etc. Current feels-like degree in Pittsburgh is 2°F (-17°C). To sum it up, it is fre*king cold now. But, I am happy. Do you know why? At least, there is not that much snow yet compared to the last year.

Wait for a sec! Jessy wants me to cut some bread for breakfast…………………. OK, I am back.

Every monday, I play soccer with some people in the league I am in. To get to the indoor sports complex, people need to drive. (Oh! You do know that you need a car in the U.S., right? It is not an option. Without a car, life is so much harder. In Korea, I did not need a car. There are so many places I could go and so many things I could do without a car. But, that is not the case in the U.S. I mean, at least, in PGH.) Starting from last Sunday, there was a winter storm affecting PGH area. Knowing that, one of my soccer friends, Eric, sent an email Monday morning to all of the players, saying, “Hey, guys, I will be there come hell or high water!”  He actually misspelled it to “cone hell or high water” and the other people teased him, saying “I will bring cones. Don’t worry, Eric!”

Even though I do not really like this expression, I believe you would want to know this one because I heard this from Andrew too. It seems like this one is a pretty popular expression. Here is a good example for you. Do you have a child? Let’s say if your child does not want to do her/his homework. How would you say to her/him in English? That is right! You can say, “Finish your homework come hell or high water.” So, do you get the meaning of the expression now? Just want to make sure we are on the same page, it means, “something must be done no matter how hard or unfavorable the circumstances are.”

Since we all know this, here is what I want to say to you, my non-native English speaker friends. KEEP STUDYING ENGLISH COME HELL OR HIGH WATER! With that, let me give you a homework. How about you try to find the etymology of this expression and add a comment?

13 Dec

whale tale

Who taught: Jake, Andrew, Pat

Last Saturday, there was a christmas party Phil and Kelly threw. It is one of the parties Jessy and I are always looking forward to. It is always amazing. Thanks, Kelly and Phil! There were around 30+ people at the party. Jessy and I knew that we would be the only Koreans. So, we decided to wear traditional Korean dress, Hanbok, this year. We brought them when we come to the U.S. but have never worn at all for about 5 years. We felt kind of sorry not wearing them because my parents packed them very carefully saying, “You should bring and wear these as much as you can.” Well, honestly, we did not like wearing them just because it requires long time to wear and feel kind of weird. But, I really wanted to show Hanbok to my American friends. I think it went well and my friends were very curious about them and asked us a lot of questions not only about Hanbok but also about Korea.

There are certain things you would like you to know about party in America.

1. Most of the time, you do not sit at all. You can sit if you want but not many people really sit down at all. In Korea, all of the people sit down throughout a party.

2. Since you do not sit, you actually walk around and get to have a lot of chances to talk to many different people. Some are the people you never met before. This used to be the part Jessy did not like a lot because of her English. She had a hard time to understand English. It is not just because of the issue of hearing English but the noises of other people’s conversations. To be able to go to a party in America, you should really be prepared to mingle with so many different people. That means you need to listen and speak English a lot. It is not that easy. But, you know what! If things are easy, there are not that much fun at all.

Whale tale cookie (source: http://www.thefunctionkey.com/)

So, shall we talk about today’s expression? I have no idea how I get to hear this expression. I totally forget. My friends and I must have talked about women for sure. Anyways, in the middle of the conversation, there was a new expression i had never heard. WHALE TALE. Well, the word itself is so simple and it does not sound like a very interesting one at all. Without the context, I would not be able to catch that it is not just the tale of a whale. Now, what it would be? Can you feel it? I bet you cannot. Let me give you a hint! It has something to do with a woman’s back. (Well, who knows it could be a man’s back. But, I hope not.) Can you imagine the tale of a whale from a woman’s back? Where it would be? That’s right. It is butt. Now, the butt itself cannot be the whale tale, right? There is a specific condition for a woman’s butt to look similar to the whale tale. She should wear low-rise jeans and a thong. If this condition meets, then it is almost 100% possible that the thong will be shown out of her jeans. Now, can you picture it? 🙂 That is the whale tale the girl is showing. Now, as always, I have a question. Do women wear low-rise jeans and a thong to intentionally show the whale tale? I think it is just an accident, right? Tell me I am right.

08 Dec

as happy as a clam

Who taught: Sunjoo

Happy as a clam (source: http://www.civin.org/)

Do you remember the post I wrote about super salad? Let me take a moment to remind you of how important for you to be prepared for a few questions you should answer whenever you order food. A lot of those questions are very short and sometimes hard to understand if you do not know the context. One of them, of course, is “Soup or Salad.” We get this question almost always when my friends and I go to a restaurant to have dinner.

Whenever there is a time to choose soup or salad, my friend, Pat, always goes for a clam chowder soup. For those of you who may not know what chowder is. Chowder itself is a type of soup containing pieces of fish. For clam chowder, the fish is clam. In Pittsburgh, most of restaurants have only one kind of clam chowder soup. But, if you go to some other cities such as New York or Boston, they have two different types of clam chowder soups. One is Manhattan clam chowder and the other is New England clam chowder. I am not sure which clam chowder I get in Pittsburgh. I think it is Manhattan. Am I right?

Speaking of clam, I learned another expression from my friend, Sunjoo. The other day, she posted her status on Facebook, saying “breakfast in bed. happy as a clam.” As soon as I see this one, I instantly knew what it means even though I have never heard of this one before. I love this expression. Even hearing the expression makes me happy because I think of a clam having a big smile on its face. I now try to remember some other expressions that can be used to describe a big smile on someone’s face. There is one with ears in it. Can you help me out, my friends? By the way, I hope you are as happy as a clam today!