…and what they actually mean here.
Every language/culture uses phrases that
are specific to them but mean something completely different in another
country/context. Here are a few
that have tickled me:
Phrase: Short call
Use:
Where can I make a short call?
I’ve often wanted to respond, ‘you can make
it just here or over there, anywhere you want really.’ But then that wouldn’t be a very
pleasant sight.
Meaning: To go to the toilet (for a number 1/pee/wee…)
____________
Phrase/word: Serious
Use:
He/she is not serious
To me, this means to be somber, deep in
concentration – or as the Americans have popularized it, to affirm a certain
notion – ‘seriously?’
Meaning: Honest/diligent/dedicated/devoted
- It’s often used when a student has stolen
something from the TRC or not handed in their homework or failed a ‘quiz.’
The best use of it here: S/he is somehow not serious
_____________
Phrase/word: Somehow
Use:
It is somehow bad
Meaning: To emphasize a degree of the adjective it complements –
similar to ‘relatively.’
It reminds me of living in Japan where all
yes/no answers were preceded by ‘maybe’ – maybe yes, maybe no. There is never any certainty in an
answer to avoid making a mistake or any form of commitment.
_____________
Phrase/word: pick
Use:
Why didn’t you pick me?
This is just lazy English and used across
Africa. The use of prepositional
phrases is obviously not taught here.
Meaning: pick-up/collect:
‘Why didn’t you answer/pick-up my call’
‘Can you pick me up?’ becomes, ‘You can
pick me.’ – I’ve changed it from a question to a statement because so often,
people do not request out here, they just state.
Word:
flu
Use:
I have the flu.
Influenza to me means being bed-ridden,
achy bones, congested…
Meaning: I have a common cold (if that) – (ready to be shot here…)
man-flu.
Language use out here is often very
technical and very direct. As
mentioned previously, there is no word for ‘please’. Perhaps that’s the English way, I’m so used to asking a
straight forward question using too many words – ‘would you be so kind as to
pass me a pen please?’ Whereas
here, it would simply be, ‘give me pen.’
I was a stickler for correcting my students before but here I am far
more lax about the use of ‘please’ – although some students have learnt to use
‘please’ and ‘could/can/may you’ to request things from me.
Technical terms are often used in everyday
speech which often confuses me.
(I’m not sure why.) Instead
of using ‘dig’, the word ‘cultivate’ is preferred; or ‘farm’ would be
‘agriculture’; ‘copy’ = ‘imitate’ or ‘transmit’…maybe that’s a result of
English being learnt through books. Written English is certainly different to spoken
English and I am not complaining about the use of it here. After all, Rwanda only changed from a Francophone
country to an Anglophone country apparently overnight in 2008 - which is crazy considering how far they have come but also the mass of problems this has caused (but that's another blogpost in itself!)
I’ve found myself speaking far slower and
articulating every word carefully, using no contractions and pretty much
sounding robotic, just to be understood.
I’ve turned into the person that I used to loathe – someone who thinking
I didn’t understand English would SHOUT and over-emphasize every syllable in a
word and repeat themselves, getting louder and slower each time to simply be
heard (and not necessarily understood.)
But then again, saying that, most people
tell me that my English is pretty comprehendible, only they have to shut their
eyes to listen to me because they can’t marry my Chinese appearance to the
voice/accent coming out of my mouth.
Racists! :)
