What's a Peeking Tom?

Peeping Tom

My Caucasian friend with a Chinese husband shared a cute remark that her husband made: "I suspect in that building across from us there are many peeking toms".

That got me thinking. What's the difference between "peep" and "peek"? So, here's what I found:
Peek: look quickly, typically in a furtive manner
Peep: look quickly and furtively at something, especially through a narrow opening

Slight difference between the two words. No wonder they're called "Peeping Toms" and not "Peeking Toms". Peeping Toms are peering through a narrow opening, while a Peeking Tom could be looking from a distance or from around a corner. All that said, my friend's husband is not wrong in his word usage. After all, if a man is looking across a building into someone's hotel room, it isn't a narrow opening! He might never get caught either, being that he's so far away.

The English language is full of phrases and sayings that easily confuse the learner. I've been speaking and writing English all my life, yet I still find out new meanings of phrases, like this one mentioned above. Sometimes it takes a non-native speaker to make our speech and language all the more colourful. So, let's colour our world with our unique brand of English!

Enjoy your language learning journey!

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Blame auto-correct!

Dyed Eggs
Easter Sunday is coming up in a few days. My American English teacher was looking for dyed eggs (like in the photo), but ended up typing "died" eggs in her Facebook status update. We all had a good laugh!

Another very young American English teacher typed "your" instead of "you're" in his Facebook status update. When corrected, he fiercely defended himself by saying his English is perfectly fine!

2 non-native English speaking friends typed "exited" instead of "excited" in their status updates. From the context, it was obvious that they meant the latter, not the former. But, one missing letter "c" can change the entire meaning of the sentence.

How could English teachers and learners of English make such simple mistakes? The 2 English teachers gave the same excuse: "Blame auto-correct!"

I have to admit: auto-correct and predictive text are wonderful creations to help get our messages out faster. But sometimes, if typing too fast to notice, we end up sending a message that makes no sense to the reader. Artificial Intelligence can only go so far. We still need the much-smarter human brain to proofread and ensure correct spelling, grammar and context. Why trade your far superior brain for a machine that checks what you've written? Don't shortchange yourself. Learn a language today. Learn it well. You will earn much more respect and praise than a machine ever can.

Fun Language Tools wishes you a blessed Easter!

Eat till it hurts and stay fat

Nike t-shirt I was walking through a mall on Saturday morning when I saw a rather large man with an equally large woman standing in the middle of the walkway eating fast food. They had on matching t-shirts (the one in the picture), shorts and sports shoes. I almost took a photo, but that would be rude. So, I continued on my way, making a mental note for today's blog post.

No Pain, No Gain

I've always heard this phrase used for exercise or sport. If you don't work out hard enough (and hence experience pain), you won't gain muscle mass, agility, strength, ... and whatever else you should to improve your physical fitness. As slightly tubby friends slog it out in the gym, us so-called friends will "motivate" them by saying, "Hey, no pain, no gain. Keep at it." This cute line is supposed to make them stay on the road to a 6-pack or hourglass figure.

Well, as I looked at this couple, I thought to myself, "How ironic!" The combination of being overweight, eating fast food and wearing this shirt was too funny for me. If you don't eat junk food till your stomach hurts (No Pain), then you won't get to my size (No Gain). So, no matter how much I exercise (note: they were wearing running shoes), I still need to eat high fat food to maintain or gain weight. Ha!

Whichever way you interpret this slogan, the fact remains that if you don't experience pain in learning anything, you will not gain knowledge and experience. The same goes with learning a language. The more pain you experience in trying to get the pronunciation, spelling, grammar, etc right, the more you will gain. You will be well on your way to communicating with a people and learning about their culture.

Whether you like it or not, all learning involves some measure of pain. The more pain, the more you gain! And have some fun in the process. The results are well worth the effort.

Learn a new language today!

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Please don't pinch the fruit

My friend from Perth, Australia, took this photo in Singapore. She thought it was so funny to read "Please Don't Pinch the Fruit". A comment from her friend was even funnier: "Oh, and all the fruit juices you get there too." To which the photographer replied: "I'm pretty confident they mean don't squeeze the fruit." That set me thinking about the difference between "pinch" and "squeeze".

Pinch: to squeeze between the thumb and a finger.

Squeeze: 1. to exert pressure on, as by way of extracting liquid; 2. to extract by or as if by applying pressure.

Minor difference between the two. But, the sentence could also be taken to mean: "please don't steal the fruit" since another meaning of "pinch" is to "pilfer or steal". Either way, it makes complete sense. It will then be up to the reader to interpret the meaning for himself.

It may seem odd to tell people not to squeeze the fruit, but, unfortunately, this is a bad Asian habit. We like our fruit fresh, ripe and sweet. One way is to pick it up and smell it (durians, nectarines, peaches). Another way is to gently squeeze the middle of the fruit to see if it is soft and ready to eat. If it is hard, then you can either choose a riper fruit, or keep it for a few days to ripen naturally before eating. But, squeezing the fruit gently will leave dents and bumps on the inside of the fruit, making it unsaleable. More often than not, we tend to squeeze the fruit rather than smell it.

I don't know if westerners do the same when shopping for fruit. Or is it a universal bad habit? I've never seen an American squeeze fruit in the supermarket. Neither do they spend a long time digging to the bottom of the pile just to choose the "best" one. What's wrong with those on top? I've found equally good fruit on top of the pile.

I once stood in front of a pile of oranges in the supermarket. Next to me was a family from China. The little girl about 8 years old was digging around the pile choosing oranges. I don't think she really knew what she was looking for. Perfectly good oranges were being thrown aside in search of the perfect ones. Her father was very patient, but I was not. She was blocking the way and just being a pain. I gently told her off, but the whole family ignored me. I love my Chinese friends, but their habits have been the subject of many criticisms around the world.

Change does not happen overnight. While trying to effect change, let us learn about each other's cultures and habits. Encourage the good and discourage the bad habits. Let's make this world a friendlier place!

Learn about a new culture today!

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How do you eat rice?

Gillian Chung is from Hong Kong. Her latest boyfriend is Korean American. Language of communication: English. Similarities: both Asian, both eat rice. Yet, Gillian said there's a little cultural divide between them.

Take, for instance, mealtimes on dates with him. She said: "Koreans don't raise their rice bowls when they eat as that's impolite to them. I'm still not used to that and feel as if I've incapacitated one hand." (Straits Times Life!, 20 March 2013)

So we thought that all Asians eat rice from a bowl using chopsticks. That's where the similarities end. How we eat tells where we have come from. I am Chinese. I can eat rice from a bowl with chopsticks, but I don't raise my bowl to my mouth and shovel the rice in. My mother told me often that was how low class people ate rice. Rich and refined people used their chopsticks to pick up a lump of rice grains and place it politely in the mouth. But I held the rice bowl in my left hand and used the chopsticks with my right hand. Till today, if I'm eating anything from a bowl, I will hold the bowl in my left hand and bring it up to about neck level. My grandmother and mother always said, "Bring the food to your mouth, not your mouth to your food." In other words, bring the bowl close to your mouth. Don't bend over to bring your mouth as close to the bowl on the table as possible.

However, I don't do that if drinking Western soup! The bowl stays on the table. Only my right hand moves, using the soup spoon. Now, I've learned that Koreans do the same. Leave the bowl on the table. Use only the chopsticks.

I just learned something new today. Next time I eat Korean food, I need to remember to eat Western style but use chopsticks to pick up my food.

Happy learning another culture and language!

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Singapore - efficient in every way!

Foreigners who come to Singapore often complain that they don't understand what Singaporeans are saying. Sometimes it is not our accent but the words. We're efficient! Everything must be "chop! chop! Let's go!" So who said communication is all about words?

Fun Language Tools doesn't offer material to learn Singlish, but you can find many other languages available here: Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Italian, etc, etc.

Learn a new language, open up a new world of opportunities!

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Speak their language, don't understand them

I speak their language, but I don't understand what they are saying.

My friend has said this to me several times over the years. He has lived in his adopted country for more than 10 years, has a local wife and a son who attends a local school. He should be an expert in the local culture and language by now. But why did he say this? Why aren't the locals getting through to him? Where has the communication failed?

Communication is more than just words. We all know that. Ho hum. Learning a language does not equal being able to communicate. All it enables us to do is be able to "get by" in the new language. We can say what we need to say, but do they really get what we mean? Sometimes yes, oftentimes, no.

It takes many years, some say a lifetime, to fully understand and get into the psyche of a people and their culture. It does help if you are not so far removed from that culture e.g. a Chinese Singaporean person who works in Hong Kong. Yes, ethnically they are the same - Chinese. Yet, they are vastly different. Even if they are from the same language group i.e. Cantonese, Singaporeans and Hong Kongers are vastly different. Even the use of words is laced with nuances that another cannot understand. How much more this difference is magnified when you get a Westerner who lives and works in Asia! He may speak the local language fluently, but he will still complain like my friend did - just can't understand what goes on in their heads.

Can we just try to see something from their perspective? It isn't easy. But it isn't impossible either. It takes a lot of humility to say "I am a student". I have chosen to be a student of other cultures, not claiming to know it all. My eyes and horizon have widened and been greatly enriched because of this. The Chinese have a saying, 活到老，学到老. In English, it means, "live till an old age, learn till an old age". Perhaps a better translation would be "learning is lifelong".

Will you continue learning a new language and culture till the day you die? I will try. I want to keep learning something new every day! Find a tool here to help you.

Have fun learning!

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Wrong spelling = poor image

"Lelvel"?
I took a walk through Little India and saw this sign outside what is arguably the most famous Indian restaurant in Singapore. Apolo Banana Leaf is very well known. Indians have a high standard of English, too. So, how did this happen???

It is easy to blame "typo error" and "lack of proofreading" for the glaring error. I think even a beginner in learning English would not make such a mistake. He would have used a dictionary first! Wrong spelling is unacceptable anywhere. It makes a laughing stock out of your company and brand, no matter how famous you may be.

While some brand names are just plain ignorance on the part of the creative team, others are thinking they have a cool idea that means something else!

Before you create a brand name and advertise it far and wide, go find out if your so-called cool brand name has any adverse meaning in another language. It pays to do some research first, or you may find that some countries will either laugh at your brand name or reject it outright. And you may never know why. Learning a new language will help prevent such mishaps.

Have fun learning, kapatid ("friend" in Tagalog)!

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Short, to the point, but sweet?

Singaporeans are known to be efficient in all that they do. Everything in the country is supposed to work like clockwork, never breaking down. Well, almost. In our quest for speed and efficiency, our communication gets that way too. We are "to the point", without beating around the bush, even in sensitive areas.

It's possible that we got this from the Americans. Singapore is a mix of both east and west, but more west than east. We function in English more than any other Asian language. I was pleasantly surprised when I read this post on American Business English.

Communication is a two-way street. The sender has a certain message he wants to convey. The reader may perceive a different meaning. In brief communication, the tone may sound completely rude, simply because the message is so "to the point". But, remove that thought and step back one step. All we're trying to do is get the message across quickly. Personally, I like that. Going round in circles drives me nuts. Just tell it to me straight. I won't be offended.

Can that happen in Asia? Maybe in the next generation. In the meantime, we have to be students of the culture we're working with, which may not necessarily be our own. Or we can take a Business English course from +Mohalam Gonoux.

Happy learning!

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Can a place be alarmed?

I saw this sign on the door of a church in Melbourne, Australia. I had to take a picture. How can an area be "alarmed"? "To be alarmed" is an emotion, which only living beings can feel, not physical locations. At least that is what I thought before I found this definition from Oxford:

verb
1 [with object] make (someone) feel frightened, disturbed, or in danger:
the government was alarmed by an outbreak of unrest
2 (be alarmed) be fitted or protected with an alarm:
this door is locked and alarmed between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

So apparently, the church staff was correct. But, to the average person who knows some English, it can be funny, or alarming! (pun intended) This sign was not Australian English, but proper use of the word.

In short, it pays to be curious about language. I learned something new today!

Have you started learning a new language yet? Get going now!

Fun Language Tools offers a variety of tools to learn many languages of the world!

Happy learning!