All my life... I never knew
God has given me a rare blessing- one best friend who has been there with me since the grade 2 teacher kept her back another year. She is Amy with the curly blonde locks. Little Amy would do cartwheels all along her frontyard while I'd wait to go home after spending all day at her house and swimming in her pool. She was Elfie, I was Dannido - we wrote diaries together about the 'naughty' people in our class.
We've been kept together, from Primary school, through High school and now into University hoping to graduate from the same degree. I've never been sure at what the Higher plans are of keeping us together most of our lives have been...
............... until now.
I was walking to uni with Amy this morning and I said, "I'm so tired. I slept at 1:30".
"Danni!" She says, "You've said that all your life!"
"What?"
"That doesn't make sense! It's out of context," she continues.
"No it's not. What are you talking about? It makes sense!" I protest.
"You're meant to say I went to bed at 1:30 or I fell asleep at 1:30," she states.
"No it's not!" I exclaimed.
"It's wrong! I don't know what your Korean-English has done to you..."
".... ohhh you do not bring that in here. That sooo has never made a difference" (I thought)
"I need to get a third party's opinion", I said.
Turning around, I ask a random gentleman with earphones on who couldn't even hear me anyway.
He supports Amy.
In which Amy finished with, "You speak a good English Danni".
NoooooOoooOoo...
And after going to every person I meet at Uni following this morning's incident, I have conducted personal research.
Hypothesis: Due to the influences of bilingualism especially the combination of English and Asian languages, the expressive purposes of some syntactical structures have been misunderstood and therefore misused. In particular, I slept at...
Method: The question, "Do you say I slept at 1:30?" was asked to an ABC (English and Cantonese) within the environment of a Sociology lecture. This same question was asked to an only English speaker after initial shock was overcome by the realisation of this misuse.
Results: The ABC stated that she did say it, where as the English speaker immediately stated that they did not and provided a correction saying, I fell asleep at 1:30.
Discussion: I was thinking about where I picked up this expression. This is such a big deal because I use it all the time. If my Aussie friends don't use it, then I must have learnt this arrangement from Korean friends which takes me to a little recording in my head of I-will-not-be-named aka Miss Cambodia (Thailand '04)'s voice. She is not the only one!
I guess it's like saying.. "I walked at 1:30" as opposed to "I went for a walk at 1:30". Context is absent.
Conclusion: I have a speech pathology.
We've been kept together, from Primary school, through High school and now into University hoping to graduate from the same degree. I've never been sure at what the Higher plans are of keeping us together most of our lives have been...
............... until now.
I was walking to uni with Amy this morning and I said, "I'm so tired. I slept at 1:30".
"Danni!" She says, "You've said that all your life!"
"What?"
"That doesn't make sense! It's out of context," she continues.
"No it's not. What are you talking about? It makes sense!" I protest.
"You're meant to say I went to bed at 1:30 or I fell asleep at 1:30," she states.
"No it's not!" I exclaimed.
"It's wrong! I don't know what your Korean-English has done to you..."
".... ohhh you do not bring that in here. That sooo has never made a difference" (I thought)
"I need to get a third party's opinion", I said.
Turning around, I ask a random gentleman with earphones on who couldn't even hear me anyway.
He supports Amy.
In which Amy finished with, "You speak a good English Danni".
NoooooOoooOoo...
And after going to every person I meet at Uni following this morning's incident, I have conducted personal research.
Hypothesis: Due to the influences of bilingualism especially the combination of English and Asian languages, the expressive purposes of some syntactical structures have been misunderstood and therefore misused. In particular, I slept at...
Method: The question, "Do you say I slept at 1:30?" was asked to an ABC (English and Cantonese) within the environment of a Sociology lecture. This same question was asked to an only English speaker after initial shock was overcome by the realisation of this misuse.
Results: The ABC stated that she did say it, where as the English speaker immediately stated that they did not and provided a correction saying, I fell asleep at 1:30.
Discussion: I was thinking about where I picked up this expression. This is such a big deal because I use it all the time. If my Aussie friends don't use it, then I must have learnt this arrangement from Korean friends which takes me to a little recording in my head of I-will-not-be-named aka Miss Cambodia (Thailand '04)'s voice. She is not the only one!
I guess it's like saying.. "I walked at 1:30" as opposed to "I went for a walk at 1:30". Context is absent.
Conclusion: I have a speech pathology.
posted by Danni at 3:56 AM
5 Comments:
hmmm..
I think you sound fine!
Btw, Hi Dannielle..how are ya!
hmm... i still think "i slept at ..." is correct =S it's using past tense...
...
my head hurts =(
Ahhh...but when you spell "Danni" it's 2 n's right?
Danielle =)
Hhahaha, i just heard the other day as well that your full name is Danielle! hahaha~ so not you! lol
Oi and that "slept" thing is so true. I don't hear many white guys saying that
Nor white gals! Least not in the U.S.A. I've enjoyed the blog roller coaster between you and all your friends. I've really enjoyed reading the Aussie "accents" coming through your writing. We have some girls from Korea (1 from Japan also when she's in town) who attend our church. It is fascinating listening to how English colloquialisms (sp?) are intermingled with their native languages. I love how God becomes our common ground in spite of such vast differences in our backgrounds.
Post a Comment
<< Home