My motivation of learning English

ukbing

It is a true story.

One of my closest mates approached me one day and talked to me “Hi, I just had a fight with my girlfriend, and she keeps ringing me, you know, I don’t want to take her call. Could you answer this call and tell her that I just had an accident and am on the way to hospital. Also let her know I will ring her back once I am available” I did what he’d told me. “This is XXX’s phone; he just had an accident and is on his way to hospital I will tell him to ring you back once he gets back to the office.” His girlfriend didn’t say much.

This guy came back to me the next day and told me, “You know what my girlfriend said last night? She said “I thought that were you on the phone at the first beginning, and then I realized that you are not capable of speaking in SUCH GOOD ASIAN ACCENT””.

This really hurt me. I knew they didn’t say it intentionally, but I did treat it very serious. I made my mind to work on my accent from that point of time.

jasonliu234

I do not get it.

What you said to his girlfriend is "HE just had an accident and is on HIS way to hospital..."  How come did his girlfriend think your friend was on the phone when you told her the "news" at the first place?

and anyway, even among English speaking country, different people have different accents. US people think both UK's and Australian accents are very annoying. Even in a city like Sydney, people living in different areas speak English in a different accent. So do not worry about too much about accent.

mr_hyn

原帖由 jasonliu234 于 14/9/2008 12:00 PM 发表
How come did his girlfriend think your friend was on the phone when you told her the "news" at the first place?

Maybe his GF was not following LZ at the first beginning?

I agree with you. Pronunciation matters much more than accents.

astina

原帖由 jasonliu234 于 2008-9-14 12:00 发表
I do not get it.

What you said to his girlfriend is "HE just had an accident and is on HIS way to hospital..."  How come did his girlfriend think your friend was on the phone when you told her the  ...

The girl thought that her boyfriend was pretending to be another person to deliver the message.

太阳星辰

啥意思，对于我不懂英语的人，能不能翻译一下？

mr_hyn

原帖由 astina 于 14/9/2008 02:30 PM 发表

The girl thought that her boyfriend was pretending to be another person to deliver the message.

阿丝好聪明啊~~  赞一个。

astina

LS是注册一年多的光脚？

mr_hyn

原帖由 astina 于 14/9/2008 06:19 PM 发表
LS是注册一年多的光脚？

唉，我买了几次美女照片后，就没鞋穿了。。。。(monkey33)

黑山老妖

原帖由 太阳星辰 于 14/9/2008 14:36 发表
啥意思，对于我不懂英语的人，能不能翻译一下？

这是一个关于一个男人、一个女人和另一个男人的故事。

y12345678

how did we know OP is not a girl?

probably this is a story of 2 girls and a gentleman.

黑山老妖

原帖由 y12345678 于 15/9/2008 09:46 发表
how did we know OP is not a girl?

probably this is a story of 2 girls and a gentleman.

You are so right!

WTFAUS

wats wrong with asian accent? as long as you pronounce the way they can understand, then it's fine.
Those Singaporeans and Hongkongnese can speak good English even with strong accent.

maribel

One advantage of speaking English with "good Asian accent" is that it will help you stand out of the crowd. :-)

ukbing

Nothing wrong. Just personal preference.

Finally I found a good English pronunciation course, but the tutor told me that it is impossible to change my accent completely if I didn’t come here before the age of 8.

That is a disappointing news.

bulaohu

I don't agree, there are extreme trainings that can wipe a person's accent clean, like how they train spies and elite interpreters. For most of us, it's simply neither worthy nor affordable though.

ukbing

I didn’t treat very serious either. I just want to keep myself busy outside of my normal working hours though if I could.

不失眠

agree