Been feeling quite good because I received an sms from YZ telling me about his dream with us sitting, eating and chatting happily - and I know that that day is coming soon in 3 months' time. Got woke up at 530am by Ruihang's phone call, who thought that it was 1130am. Though he forgot the name of my UK university, and thought UIUC is in UK, I think he's too bogged down by work nowadays. The thought that he called was quite good.
Then I started the day by repeating "Hua Xiang" in my iPod and reminiscing the times I had in Singapore - when I watched Zhou Chuan Xiong's concert with Jingyi, how I felt when I realized Ambrose Hsu was the guest star and all. Yep, so I was basically happy.
Until I went for my marketing communications class.
We were going through our report as a group, and one of the team member saw the word "disseminate" in the report.
S: Wow! 'Disseminate'! Who wrote that, I don't even know what it means!
(I raised my hand; meanwhile the rest of the group were like woah, what's that word)
S: Oh, you found it in the thesaurus right?
I didn't think much of it initially. Just thought that it must have been my past performance during group discussion that led them to think that my english profiency is really that low. Later, when I started talking to my ABC friend Camille about it. She was like,"Were your group members all white?" And ya, they were. Camille was pretty pissed over it.
Actually, I should feel pissed too right, but I feel really quite sad. I think it all boils down to my vocal skills. Being in english-speaking environment the past 2 years doesn't seem to have any positive influence on my ability to communicate. I guess it's really not their fault to think that way, considering how often I couldn't catch what they were trying to say because of their accent. Yeah, and by right, the American accent shouldn't be that tough to understand, with all the exposure from "Sex and the City" and movies.
Yeah, probably I should really try harder to speak the American way. It seemed so much easier for me to adopt the Taiwanese chinese accent. Hai... But sometimes, you know what you should improve on, but it's just so hard...
Then I started the day by repeating "Hua Xiang" in my iPod and reminiscing the times I had in Singapore - when I watched Zhou Chuan Xiong's concert with Jingyi, how I felt when I realized Ambrose Hsu was the guest star and all. Yep, so I was basically happy.
Until I went for my marketing communications class.
We were going through our report as a group, and one of the team member saw the word "disseminate" in the report.
S: Wow! 'Disseminate'! Who wrote that, I don't even know what it means!
(I raised my hand; meanwhile the rest of the group were like woah, what's that word)
S: Oh, you found it in the thesaurus right?
I didn't think much of it initially. Just thought that it must have been my past performance during group discussion that led them to think that my english profiency is really that low. Later, when I started talking to my ABC friend Camille about it. She was like,"Were your group members all white?" And ya, they were. Camille was pretty pissed over it.
Actually, I should feel pissed too right, but I feel really quite sad. I think it all boils down to my vocal skills. Being in english-speaking environment the past 2 years doesn't seem to have any positive influence on my ability to communicate. I guess it's really not their fault to think that way, considering how often I couldn't catch what they were trying to say because of their accent. Yeah, and by right, the American accent shouldn't be that tough to understand, with all the exposure from "Sex and the City" and movies.
Yeah, probably I should really try harder to speak the American way. It seemed so much easier for me to adopt the Taiwanese chinese accent. Hai... But sometimes, you know what you should improve on, but it's just so hard...
2 comments:
Hey
1,2,3... HAHA
lets laugh together at the blokes who call themselves Americans. 'Disseminate' is such a basic word. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Anyway, I don't think theres a need to try to learn the American way of speaking. You shine the way you are.
As for grasping what they say, don't worry, it takes time. You are not a genius, but so isn't billions of people around the world.
(Would personally recommend the accentless and perfect english of newscasters, like Suzanne Jung. Brings you everywhere and still gets understood)
Ann Yeong!
hey.. qi dai ni hui lai singapore de time wor! :P
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