Thursday 28 October 2010

If you keep your mouth shut, you will never put your foot in it. (Austin O'Malley)

I can really identify with my namesake and her language identity crisis. The classic mistake for me is "We were seven" instead of the more natural "There were seven of us". This is just so that you know we all have our problems with English, natives and students alike. In fact, a couple of weekends ago, when I paid a visit to my hometown, my father said I had acquired an Australian intonation. He asked if I had been watching Australian soaps! My son, who I had recently accused of having acquired an American accent - he spent most of last course in the company of an exchange student - found this hilarious. I, however, was mortified.

4 comments:

MARÍA JOSÉ said...

I have made a count in google and this is just a proof.

nina said...

OK, Mª Jose, your account is fine so go ahead and particpate in the on-line courses, a.k.a. cabbages, a.k.a. "coles" in Spanish!

Unknown said...

This is quite true, jaja...First time I went abroad I stayed a month in Switzerland training my French. When I came back, I couldn´t give a word in English. Needless to say that after 5 years speaking in English at University, I had and still have a great amount of gaps in Spanish (
Imagine in english, then)... I feel better knowing that I´m not the only one...haha...As we say in Spanish..."mal de mucho, consuelo de tontos..."

nina said...

In George Moore's words "There is nothing so consoling as to find one's neighbour's troubles are at least as great as one's own."