Uncle???

I was watching a video of a group of men in Taipei, Taiwan, giving a performance of two songs in a church service. At the end of their short performance, the pastor of the church came up and asked the congregation if they wanted to hear more. He was speaking in Mandarin, saying, "有没有 "uncle"？聚会之前，他们有跟我说有没有 "uncle", 他们还是会唱多一首歌。" (English translation: Is there an "uncle"? Before the service, they told me they would sing another song even without "uncle".)

While the pastor was speaking, I was puzzled. What does "uncle" have to do with singing?

In the middle of their last song, I realised what "uncle" was. "Encore"! That's what the pastor was saying! He was asking the congregation if they wanted to hear more songs. If they did, then they should be saying, "Encore! Encore!"

Chinese English.
Mangled pronunciation.
Understand the context.

Having encountered many different nationalities speaking English, I am actually pretty good at deciphering what people are trying to say. This one stumped me. I suppose the context of a church service didn't help in this case. But, I got it in the end. It can get frustrating, but more often than not, I choose to celebrate the variety of English spoken around the world.

Let's celebrate variety and uniqueness!

MeetingS kills

A friend was preparing slides for a training session entitled "Meeting Skills". In the process of typing the title slide, she realised that with a small typo, you will get an entirely different meaning:

"MeetingS kills"

Anyone who has ever sat through a meeting can testify that on the whole, meetings are a dreaded necessity. This is especially true if the Chairperson does not know how to keep the agenda moving in a quick and efficient manner. Discussions can go completely out of hand if not directed well. An agenda with only a few items ends up lasting hours because people were allowed to talk freely on anything superficially related to the topic. Hence, skills are required to conduct meetings so that the business gets done in as short a time as possible. Chop, chop ... and the meeting is over. Work can commence.

If the meeting goes on and on, you may find enthusiasm "killed". People will find excuses not to attend the meeting, or be physically present but mentally somewhere else.

Get the right meeting skills or risk killing others (or getting killed) by meetings.

Have fun at your next meeting!

Angles we have heard on high

"Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o'er the plains"

Christmas is in the air! Carols can be heard in almost every public place and sometimes on street corners. Pictures of nativity scenes, angels, and Santa Claus and reindeer greet us wherever we look. Simply cannot run away from Christmas.

Every Christmas, there will inevitably be at least one person who cannot differentiate between "angels" and "angles".

Other than an inability to spot the difference (I know quite a few people like that!), angels are far from angular!

Angels are generally portrayed as benign celestial beings who are watching over us from above. They are summoned by God to keep watch over mankind. One angel per person, some say two angels per child. Angelic beings are gentle, loving and caring. In contrast, angles are known to be hard and inflexible. If something is described as being "angular", it means that the item has hard lines and feels cold and uncaring (as opposed to curved lines which show softness).

More importantly, if the carol Gloria in Excelsis Deo were to be typed incorrectly i.e. "angles we have heard on high" instead of "angels we have heard on high", it would make no sense. Angles can't sing. Angels do. Sweetly too.

So, if you are in charge of creating song sheets or PowerPoint slides for Christmas, be careful! Angles do not sing. :D

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas now!

Caesar ate no scissors in his salad

Social media in Malaysia is buzzing with the latest news about salad served at a Parliament dinner.

The menu said: "Scissors Salad". The dish appeared: Ceasar's Salad.

Dessert was: Cream Brule. The dish: Creme Brûlée.

What went wrong? No one has come outright to say so, but it can be easily blamed on lack of proofreading before going to print.

The caterer obviously typed what he had heard pronounced, without checking with anyone. Unforgivable? Yes, because it is an important dinner.

Blame the poor standard of Malaysian English? That would be very mean. It can happen anywhere in the world! After all, the only English spoken around the world is bad English (according to my South African friend). Even the best of us can make mistakes. Let's take them as lessons to be learned quickly and not to be repeated ever again.

In the meantime, rest assured that the salad only contained vegetables and other food items, no scissors.

Bon appetit!

Fat or VAT?

My Malaysian Chinese friend working in the UK wrote this on her Facebook:

"Customer confronts me today and repeats "fat fat fat where is the fat"... Took a few seconds to realize he was looking for the VAT counter and thankfully directed him there instead of to the queue for roast pork."

English as it is pronounced by different nationalities.

From a linguistics standpoint, the letters 'v' and 'f' are very similar in sound. Blow air through your upper teeth while bringing your lower lip up to the edge of your upper teeth. Then make the sound for 'v' or 'f'. It is so easy to get the two sounds mixed up.

In some words such as 'verb', if pronounced 'ferb', would make no sense whatsoever. The hearer might even wonder if the speaker wants a 'herb' instead.

However, in my friend's case, she almost sent the customer to the wrong counter! Apart from the different pronunciation of 'VAT', her Chinese mind (aka foodie mind), was thinking about any kind of food that contains high amounts of fat. Hence, roast pork.

Moral of the story: try not to process everything you hear through your own cultural mindset. Take a step back and try to understand the speaker's standpoint before offering an answer. When that fails, ask questions. At all costs, try to avoid misunderstanding. At all times, keep a big smile on your face and show interest. When words fail, the smile melts the coldest heart.

Have fun listening to and trying to understand different pronunciations of English!

It's not always what you think it means

Before my trip to Munich, Germany, a friend posted this picture on Facebook. He was warning all of us non-German speaking friends not to be confused when entering the restroom. (If you know just a little bit of German, you will probably be wondering what the fuss is all about.)

To him, "Damen" means Gents because the German word contains "men".

"Herran" would then mean Ladies because the German word begins with "her".

Dead wrong!

It is exactly the opposite! "Damen" is German for Ladies, while "Herran" is German for Gentlemen.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I suddenly remembered that "dame" is a lady and "herr" means Mister. Would I have been confused with the signs anyway? Yes. It has been way too long for me to make sense of the words quickly. At the art museum in Munich, the toilet signs read "D" and "H". Which one would be for me?

My travelling companion said that on her previous trip, she actually waited outside the toilet for someone to come out, just so she would not enter the wrong toilet!

Thankfully, many of the newer toilet signs show the universal picture of a man or a woman - no words to cause confusion.

One final thought: if someone from Hawaii looked at these signs, he would automatically think that "Damen" is the Gents. In Hawaii, "damen" would be pronounced "Da Men"!

Have fun with languages!

Confusing? No, not confusing

Dr Tu You You from China has made the headlines this week for being one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Everyone in China is celebrating the win! People around the world are celebrating the win!

When her birthday comes around, her family in China will definitely NOT be singing "Happy Birthday" to her in English. If they did, then this remark would hold true. However, more likely than not, the family would sing the song in Chinese, which would make this joke entirely irrelevant.

Some jokes just do not translate into another language.

I suppose that is part of the fun of cross-cultural communication!

Congratulations, Dr Tu You You! 恭喜你！

Photo credit: 9GAG