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Aug. 25th, 2006 06:44 pmAll of you guys know how I talk... right? Like I have an aheem... problem. 'Twould be easy enough to blame this on my poor mastery of English, if I didn't yak in Russian exactly the same way (i.e. like a very-late-night taxi driver).
American people have been very tactful in rarely ever pointing this out to me, with a notable exception of a British math prof (hi Dr. Sturtivant! it was a great class!), who wrote a misleading quiz question, and then blew me off with the "non-native" verdict. I kinda miss the fun I could've had as a linguist, if I bothered to collect scientific evidence... Anyways, year & a half later, I'm riding a bus and ask the driver to warn me when we get to a certain point, since this is my first trip on the route. The man seems to understand after a while, so I sit down & wait & have a little conversation with a woman who wants to know where did I get the ( nice beige scarf ) on my head. Then another woman pulls the stop signal and tells me that that's where I need to get off, 'cause she overheard the conversation with the driver. Next few minutes condensed: he imagined I needed to go downtown, and I wanted to transfer & go home - and apparently the misunderstanding is my fault because I have a language problem, no less. Hmm... somehow the woman sitting ten feet behind understood me well enough to help... hmmm.. I think the headscarf had something to do with my perceived language competency... funnybusiness, huh?
American people have been very tactful in rarely ever pointing this out to me, with a notable exception of a British math prof (hi Dr. Sturtivant! it was a great class!), who wrote a misleading quiz question, and then blew me off with the "non-native" verdict. I kinda miss the fun I could've had as a linguist, if I bothered to collect scientific evidence... Anyways, year & a half later, I'm riding a bus and ask the driver to warn me when we get to a certain point, since this is my first trip on the route. The man seems to understand after a while, so I sit down & wait & have a little conversation with a woman who wants to know where did I get the ( nice beige scarf ) on my head. Then another woman pulls the stop signal and tells me that that's where I need to get off, 'cause she overheard the conversation with the driver. Next few minutes condensed: he imagined I needed to go downtown, and I wanted to transfer & go home - and apparently the misunderstanding is my fault because I have a language problem, no less. Hmm... somehow the woman sitting ten feet behind understood me well enough to help... hmmm.. I think the headscarf had something to do with my perceived language competency... funnybusiness, huh?