Wednesday, August 25, 2010

* Why you speaking this way for?

Why is it when we (well at least the majority of us) speak to ethnic, mostly older, people, we don't say sentences correctly. As soon as we hear them talk in a funny accent with grammatically incorrect sentences, we start to talk back to them in broken english as well. We leave out adjectives, verbs and generally any conjoining words, as though making the sentences as short as possible will make it easier for the ethnic person to understand what we're saying.

Old Chinese Man: "Herroo. Is you know where twan stasun?"
Me: "Sorry?"
OCM: "How you say da...uhm... d-d-d-da twaan stasunnn?"
Me: "Train station?"
OCM: "Yis yis, this one"
Me: "Ok. You see there, take the left. Keep going. You see the lights. Go the right"
OCM: "Erm...ehh? Why you der speaka this way for?"
Me: "...me no speak english."

Maybe the only reason ethnic people speak the way they do is because everyone else continually speaks retarded english to them because we think that's the only way they'll understand. They're probably thinking that the way they talk is fine because that's the way everyone else is speaking to them. Maybe if we all just speak normally to them, using verbs, adjectives and, heaven forbid, words with more than 2 syllables, maybe that'll turn them into fluently speaking Englishmen.

Old Chinese Man: "Herroo. Is you know where twan stasun?"
Me: "Sorry?"
OCM: "I said, can you please direct me to the nearest train station? Your deafness is horridly idiotic, if I must say so myself"
Me: "...Why you der speaka this way for?"

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