What Foreign Language(s) Should I Learn?

One of the questions people have been asking me most frequently is: what foreign language(s) should I (my kid) learn? I get that all the time. ALL THE TIME. I'm not bothered in the least bit by it; though flattered, I just feel a little under-equipped to give them any advice. After all, I'm more of a linguist/grammarian/philologist than a foreign language expert. And linguistics and the study of foreign languages are not the same.

But I have studied several foreign languages both in school and on my own. So, for what it's worth ...

First, ask yourself why you want to study a foreign language. Is it for personal edification? Is it for a specific job (Chinese because I'll be working for a Chinese company), a specific academic program (Arabic because I'll be studying Islamic literature in grad school), or a specific circumstance (I'll be marrying a Russian girl and I think I want to learn Russian)? Is it to find a job in areas that require a foreign language (I want to teach X to high school students)?

If it's for personal edification as in I want to learn X because I like it, then, by all means, learn X for no other reasons than that it pleases you and don't look back.

If it's for a specific job, academic program, or circumstance which you have planned for the foreseeable future, then you don't have much of a choice. Whatever language is required of you, you learn it.

But if you don't really have any specific short-term or long-term goal, and you want to invest your time, money, and energy learning a foreign language in preparation for whatever opportunities that may come your way in the future, here's what I think.

1. You should go for languages that are spoken by multiple ethnic groups living in multiple areas of the world. You get the most bang for your buck that way. In light of this, it's not hard to see that Japanese, Thai, or German (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_German_World.png) will not create nearly as many career opportunities for you as, say, Arabic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dispersión_lengua_árabe.png), French, or Mandarin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mandarin_and_Jin_in_China.png) plus Chinese diaspora).

2. You should go for a language that shares the same family with other widely-spoken languages. Family members behave alike. Once you know one in a family, you pretty much know how to deal with the other members of the same family even though they all have certain features and idiosyncrasies that are unique to them.

Take, for example, Romance languages. Two major, major languages in that family alone: Spanish and French. (Italian, Portuguese, etc., are great languages to learn, I know, but see point #1 for the reason I've singled out French and Spanish.) This means, once you know French, adding Spanish to your repertoire at a later time is a piece of cake, and vice versa. Knowing French will serve you well in these areas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New-Map-Francophone_World.PNG. Knowing Spanish will get you places in these areas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Castellano-Español.png. With either French or Spanish under your belt, if you have the time and the desire to study, say, Catalan, later, guess what? Easy.

This applies even to dead or ancient languages. Members of the Semitic family is well-known for behaving alike, very much alike. Pick one of them to study first, and you'll find that acquiring competency in the rest is a cake walk. Going from classical Arabic to classical Hebrew or from Latin to Attic or Koine Greek is easy, much easier than going from ancient Khmer to Sumerian.

So the whole biggest-bang-for-your-buck thing from point #1 also applies here: go for a large family with multiple influential members.

The question you may have at this point is: wouldn't studying a language that most people study make it hard for me to stand out, find a job, be considered unique and indispensable?

Yes and no. Some languages are more popular than others for a reason (which will be elaborated in point #3 below), and some languages are ignored for a reason also. True, there are a whole bunch of people who know Spanish, French, and Arabic, but how many of them know Hmong? What if I set out to become an expert in Hmong? Or modern Aramaic? Or Estonian? Or Ainu?

You can. But you're gambling. You could win big. You could also lose big. How to decide? Consider the worst case scenario, if you're okay with that, I'd say go for an obscure language or a language that may not be obscure but doesn't really have that much impact on the world compared to others (e.g. Catalan, German, modern Greek, Polish). But even with an obscure or a not-so-obscure-but-not-so-in-demand-either language, you probably also want to keep the following point in mind.

3. If a lucrative, financially-rewarding career (well, as rewarding as a career in the humanities is, anyway, which means not very rewarding) is a goal, then consider world events. Back in the Cold War era or even back in the early 90s after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, knowing Russian would definitely land you some really good jobs both in the public and private sectors. In the last decade or so, Arabic has become one of the top, if the top, choice among those seeking to learn a foreign language. Due to the war in Afghanistan, even the Pashto language (which is not nearly as widely-spoken as Arabic) has paved the way to many governmental jobs with ridiculously high salary. With the rise of China, Mandarin Chinese has also become an extremely popular choice.

Knowing a language that is in demand will naturally open up more opportunities for you than knowing an obscure language or a language spoken in areas of the world that aren't the current foci of the world's attention.

_______________________________
Now, once you've chosen a language that makes the most sense to your situation to study, what do you do with it? What jobs can you get with it?

Most people who get into foreign languages often harbor the dream of traveling extensively or living overseas. From my experience, though that's a real possibility, realistically, you're not going to be making much money at all. You could spend several years living frugally overseas only to find yourself back in your home country with no retirement funds. This has happened to people, mostly those who work for nonprofit religious organizations, whom I know personally.

There are people who live as expats overseas who make tons of money and can afford to live in apartments and homes priced in the range affordable only among the local elite. But 99.99% of the time -- fine, based on my experience, 100% of the time -- these people's jobs have nothing to do with teaching a foreign language or serving as a translator/interpreter.

Most likely, you'll end up teaching English or doing something for non-profit organization (read: not much pay).

Work as a translator/interpreter is best done as a (hopefully) paid hobby or a side job. Translation gigs are hard to come by, and when they do come by, they come by with very little money. In fact, when it comes an event or a task wherein translation of X into english and vice versa is required, most companies or hiring entities much prefer a native speaker of X who also knows English as a second language over a non-native speaker of X whose first language is English (assuming all of this takes place in a country where X is the official language).

But there's always the Foreign Service.

Quite honestly, if the goal is to travel and live overseas, it's best to make TESOL your main study and a foreign language a secondary endeavor. TESOL will land you a job overseas (teaching English, running an international school, etc.) much more easily than a major in a foreign language. Just my two cents.

On Ass

On my blogs, especially the one about food, I’ve tried to keep my language as PG as possible which isn’t that hard to do, because I don’t really swear that much in real life anyway. Well, except when the situation warrants an expletive or two. Still that doesn’t happen a whole lot.

But today I’m going to be writing about the word “ass” and since “ass” is the main topic, I cannot avoid it. And I can’t use any of its synonyms either as you’ll see. I must use the word, “ass.” So be warned that there will be a lot of asses coming at you.

I don’t know why I have to preface this with an apology (of sorts). There are like – I don’t know – six of you reading this blog anyway, and I know that four of you swear.

But I digress.

Back to ass. Yes. Let’s get cracking. (Sorry.)

When I first came to the United States, I wasn’t exactly a blank slate in terms of the English language and the American culture. I’d seen several Hollywood movies over the years. I’d had American teachers and professors. Almost every Friday afternoon, after school, I’d go sit in an obscure corner inside American University Alumni (AUA) library, reading everything from Louis L’Amour to Erma Bombeck to Good Housekeeping to Cosmopolitan (it was there!).

But the moment I came ashore, got off the boat, and reached out for a handshake, what did I get? The American people threw the word “ass” at me like a cranked-up automatic tennis ball launcher. That happened so often that I became kind of obsessed with it.

And it bothers me a little that after all these years of trying, I still don’t have a firm grasp on ass (no pun intended).

You see, even when I didn’t know so much about ass, I kind of knew that it is a vulgar synonym for a person’s buttocks. The problem is that ass means so much more in the American culture.

It can be used as derogatory term for someone who is either stupid or rude, e.g. “What are you going out with him for? That guy’s an ass!”

It gets more interesting.

Ass can also be used as an intensifier, e.g. “What a lame-ass way to ask someone for a favor!” or “Don’t bring your stupid-ass boyfriend to my party!” Ass is usually a noun, but I’m not sure what part of speech it becomes when used this way. Is it an adverb modifying the adjective “lame” and “stupid” respectively (as in “really” or “super” lame/stupid)? Possible.

I also think it’s possible that, when used in this manner, ass and the adjective which it functions in conjunction with form a single, inseparable unit which functions adjectivally in a sentence (modifying “way” and “boyfriend” in the examples above). But then I can’t think of other examples of other adjective-noun combos that function in this way.

But the most amusing, complex, culturally-fascinating use of ass in the American culture is when it’s used as synecdoche. This type of ass was, in fact, the one that caused me the most confusion when I first came here. I fully understand it now. And, boy, what a fun-ass way to use ass. [For those unfamiliar with synecdoche, consult wiki.]

It’s the pars pro toto aspect of synecdoche, i.e. part of something is used to represent its totality. An example of pars pro toto synecdoche would be when you refer to a car as “a set of wheels.” Of course, a car consists of more parts than just the wheels, but “a set of wheels” has become a way of referring to a car – the whole car.

Ass is used this way quite a bit. Examples include “Yo, move your ass over here!” (translation: you bring yourself – the whole body not just the rear end – over here) or “I called and called and called. Where was your ass last night?” (translation: where were you – the whole person not just your buttocks – last night?).

What still stumps me is when someone refers to a person as “a (hot) piece of ass.” My instinct says that this could be another form of synecdoche, referring to a person who is attractive as a whole not just his/her derriere. But since this usage of ass seems to always have a sexual connotation (e.g. “I get it. I’m just another piece of ass to you, aren’t I?”), I’m thinking perhaps ass here is a euphemism for – am I over-thinking this? – another body part located on the opposite side of the buttocks. Maybe not. I don’t know.

[Added April 28th, 2012: Then we have other uses which present a bit of a challenge in terms of semantics:
I'm rolling on the floor laughing my ass off.
Respect? Respect, my ass! Who does that to someone they respect?]

What English Sounds Like to Non-English Speakers

This is from an Italian TV program: a song sung in gibberish designed to sound like American English.



A Thai news anchor reads the news in Thai with British accent. (Just so you know, without the subtitle, I wouldn't understand a word she's saying. And I speak Thai.) Hilarious.

The Green Banana

I read "The Green Banana" by Donald Batchelder for the first time when I was in high school and it has stuck with me ever since. It was the first time in my life when I started questioning where the center of the world is for me, where it is for others, and what all that means; it was also the beginning of my interest in learning about other cultures beyond foreign languages.

Have you read it?

You can find this short essay from one of these sources here.

Learning English Through Songs: Bennie and the Jets

The commentary is in green.

Bennie and the Jets (Elton John, 1974)

Hey kids, shake it loose together
The spotlight's hitting something
That's been known to change the weather
The singer is using the interjection "hey" to get the attention of a group of human beings between the stages of birth and puberty. The following imperative is a command for them to collectively cause something ("it") to move back and forth. Whether or not the singer will join in the shaking of the undefined "it" remains unclear from the adverb, "together." He's also making a non sequitur statement about the spotlight hitting something the result of which has been known to create changes in the weather.

We'll kill the fattened calf tonight
So stick around
The singer is now informing the aforementioned children that a baby animal (could be a baby cow, a baby whale, or a baby elephant) which has been made plump will have its life terminated this evening. He's using the killing of said animal to motivate the children to stay where they are.

You're gonna hear electric music
Solid walls of sound
Another reason is cited for why these minors should not leave the scene: they will hear music which is electronically created. This music, based on the following appositive, is akin to multiple architectural partitions characterized by good substantial quality.

Oh, Candy and Ronnie, have you seen them yet
But they're so spaced out, B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets
It's unclear at this point whether the singer is addressing two children named Candy and Ronnie who are part of the group or he is turning his attention to a completely new group of people of which Candy and Ronnie are part. Regardless, he wants to know if Candy and Ronnie have ever seen Bennie and the Jets, two never-before-mentioned entities (one singular and one collective?) who are described as being stupefied or disoriented from, or as if from, a drug.

Oh but they're weird and they're wonderful
Oh Bennie she's really keen
The singer is opining that these two entities are preternatural and strange in character and that they are extraordinarily good. Bennie, in particular, the singer asserts, is finely sharpened.

She's got electric boots, a mohair suit
You know I read it in a magazine
B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets
According to the singer, Bennie has in her possession the kind of protective footwear that is operated by electricity as well as an outer garment of fabric created with yarn made from the silky hair of the Angora goat. It is unclear as to whether she has them on her person at the time of the singing or she merely owns these items. The singer, however, makes it clear that the source of his information about Bennie's personal belongings is a periodical containing a collection of articles (also possible: a receptacle in which anything is stored, especially military stores, as ammunition, arms, provisions, etc.).

The names of Bennie and the Jets are again invoked. Reasons for this are unclear.

Hey kids, plug into the faithless
Maybe they're blinded
But Bennie makes them ageless
The singer is again turning his attention to the same group of minors. This time he calls upon them to use an object, such as a cork or a wad of cloth, to fill tightly a hole of those who are described as disloyal, unreliable, and having no religious faith. He makes a supposition that these people -- into whom the plugging is to be performed -- have been deprived of sight. Bennie, however, is making these people exist forever in an unchanged stage. (The cause-effect of this part of the song is a bit questionable.)

We shall survive, let us take ourselves along
Where we fight our parents out in the streets
To find who's right and who's wrong
The singer is concluding his speech by stating that he and the children (we) will remain alive and continue to function or prosper. He's encouraging them to take themselves to a place where they can contend in battle or physical combat in the public ways (or thoroughfares in a city or town) with the people who have begotten them. The purpose of this hostile activity is to determine which party is being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper and which is not.

The end.


And then we have this version. (h/t @ThaiFoodBlog):

A Mini Rant Set off by an Ancient Jewish Poem of Thanksgiving

Nostalgically, I grabbed my worn-out copy of Biblia Hebraica off my bookshelf this afternoon and started flipping through it. Then I realized that I had placed a bookmark at the location of poem #136 in the collection of ancient Jewish poetry known by its Hellenized name, the Psalms. It's a thanksgiving poem. And today is thanksgiving in the US. Uncanny. I still can't recall why I placed my bookmark there.

By the way, psalm 136 is a beautiful poem, but something about the repetition in it just doesn't appeal to me. I'm more interested in poems like Psalm 119 which is brilliantly acrostic. Now that's hard to compose. Repeating the same sentence over and over in the same poem? Not so much.

Regardless, let's get back to #136.

As any competent translator will tell you, nothing presents more difficulty than the task of rendering poetry from one language to another. The task of translation is already extremely challenging. In fact, show me a translator who finds his/her job easy and I'll show you someone who stinks at what s/he does). Subjecting one poem structure used in one culture and language group to another poem structure used in another culture and language group requires a skill which, well, I'd say, nobody has. If you want accurate translation of a poem in its entirety, the structure goes out the window. If you want to preserve the poetic appeal of the original poem, the translator almost always has to take poetic license, in which case dynamic translation becomes necessary and literal translation not only impractical but utterly impossible.

And that's perhaps why if you ask anyone well-versed in classical Hebrew, they'll tell you that the translators of the Septuagint (LXX) which is the Greek version of these Jewish sacred writings kind of messed it up.


The sentence that is repeated throughout #136 is כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ which says, for/because his (i.e. YHWH's) "hesed" is forever. We'll come back to hesed in a moment.

The LXX has rendered that Hebrew sentence thus: ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ. Literally, it means, "for/because his mercy [is] forever."

The Greek word used to render חסד (hesed) is ἔλεος (elelos), the word that Hebraists will tell you is too general, too weak, too insufficient to convey the meaning of something so deep and relationship-focused as hesed. "Loyalty" or "covenantal loyalty" have been suggested as a better translation. Even so, it's still not quite accurate. Hesed is a loaded word carrying with it tons of historical and religious significance, and "mercy," it's been pointed out, is merely a tiny, tiny part of this covenantal loyalty which the main deity of the ancient Hebrews, to and about whom this poem is written, has with his people.

Why, then, is the suggested translation not more prevalent among the various English versions? Given what we know about western civilization, which language has more chances of influencing/reaching the masses? Not classical Hebrew. Which version of the psalm reached far and wide into the world? Not the Hebrew version.

Hence the feeling that this is not right, that a culture or a language group is misrepresented. This may not represent one of the cases that are considered big deals—and this whole thing may seem trivial to many—but I figure it's kind of a big deal to the misunderstood.


Which brings me to something that has bothered me for nearly two weeks now.

I don't know why this bugs me so much. It happened a long time ago; and by this time people know better than to reconstruct the history of Thailand based solely, or even heavily, on the various accounts of western visitors who perceived things through their western lenses.

An outsider's view is not a bad thing. Not only is it not bad, it can also be very useful in providing a perspective you don't have as an insider. An outsider's view is bad only when the outsider is not aware of—or, worse, will not acknowledge—the limitations of his/her view or the possibility that it could be skewed due to various factors. An outsider's view is particularly bad when the outsider commits a preventable gaffe of making assertions without proper and thorough verification with respectable sources.

For example: "Having no corn, they supply its lack by cakes of rice," said François Henri Turpin of the Burmese, in Histoire naturelle et civile du royaume de Siam (1771).

The Burmese ate rice because they lacked corn? Is rice what you eat when you don't have corn? Nothing personal, but shut up, Turpin. Oh, sorry, I was being rude. Shut up, s'il vous plaît.

But the screen shot above doesn't come from Turpin; it's an excerpt from a different book, Du Royaume de Siam by Simon de la Loubère.

In this excerpt, de la Loubère asserts that the Siamese in the 1600s called their king, "Pra Maha Crassat." The word, "crassat [sic]," says he, means "living" (vivant). Since "pra" generally means "god" ("according to the Portuguese," he writes) and "maha" means "big," de la Loubère concludes that "Pra Maha Crassat," the term used to refer to the king of Siam, means, "The Great Living God" (le Grand Dieu vivant).

O. Kay.

Although ... the Thai word for "king," กษัตริย์ (ka-sat), comes from the Sanskrit Kshatriya (क्षत्रिय) which means "warrior." And since Kshatriya is one of the four varnas in Hinduism which apply only to people, its semantic range can't possibly cover "god."

[Also, I can't figure out what led the guy to such a messed-up spelling, "crassat," which suggests he couldn't hear very well (for I can't imagine the Siamese collectively pronounced the word with the consonant cluster "cr/kr" in the first syllable). But this is a minor point compared to the previous one. It can also be corrected more easily.]

Regardless, De la Loubère "facts" aren't facts. The guy was wrong. And if he was wrong about objective, verifiable things, one wonders how wrong he might have been in the less verifiable parts of his accounts. But did his readers realize this? Unlikely. Did they have the ability or the curiosity to find out? Back then, probably not. The guy went to a foreign land where most of his readers had never gone to. He comes home with tales about that place and its people. He's now the expert among his own people. If De La Loubère had written a magazine article about the food/culture/lifestyle of the Siamese, his piece would probably won a few awards from a committee of people who couldn't/didn't bother to verify his "facts" too.

Did the Siamese have any chance of correcting those pieces of misinformation? No. They didn't speak the language spoken by de la Loubère's audience; they didn't know what was being said about them in the first place. And even if they did and tried to correct it, being from a non-dominant culture, they most likely wouldn't have a voice or a platform to do so. Some of them probably even noticed that people from the dominant culture had a tendency to believe their fellow countrymen, who looked like them and whose names rolled off their tongues more easily, than some foreigners from a faraway land.

Now I know why this whole thing about De la Loubère still bugs me today. It's precisely because this kind of thing still happens in the present time.

What Different Animals Represent in Different Cultures

It happened last summer. On a Wednesday. In the afternoon.

I'd just relived my youth through an amazing lunch at Le Normandie at the Mandarin Oriental which was concluded with not just one, but two pieces of anything I wanted from the dessert cart. They were served in a pool of crème anglaise decorated with hibiscus flowers made of mango coulis. It was old-fashioned, nostalgic, delicious. And I was happy.

What does this have anything to do with anything? Why all the details?

Well, please allow me to include some gratuitous information for today isn't just any day; it marks the one-year anniversary of the day I published the first post on this site.

August 26th, 2009, which was the day I'd just been describing to you, was when I decided to write a blog about linguistics and intercultural communications. The decision was made after that glorious lunch, when I was in a car, right in the heart of Bangkok's business district, on Rama IV Road heading towards Wittayu Road.


On my way back home, the car came to a long stand-still at an intersection. See the little green dot in the satellite shot above? That's where it happened. On my left was Lumpini Park, Bangkok's equivalent of New York City's Central Park. As I was minding my own business, the driver, who had been completely quiet up to that point, blurted out, "Hia!"

I looked at him. Without any body gestures or anything at all to let me know what he was referring to, the guy repeated the same monosyllabic, "Hia!" -- only more loudly. My mind was scrambling to figure out to or about whom he was talking, but then there wasn't anyone else around. Me? (Gasp.) Hia? Really? Why?

Then he said it the third time while looking at me through the rear view mirror, thus confirming what I was afraid would be the case: the guy was really talking to me.

I need to explain to you first that when someone calls you a "hia" (เหี้ย), they mean you're an a--hole. This Thai word is one of the classic insults -- very vulgar ones -- which have been around for as long as I remember. The word was in vogue when my grandparents were little; it still is today.

Nobody had ever called me a hia to my face before. And I used to think that if it ever happened, I would be able to come up with a quick come-back since I'm usually pretty darn good at repartee. In this case, though, I was too busy being in shock.

"Huh?" was the result of all the wit and eloquence I could muster.


That's when my driver pointed to the left.

Through the wrought-iron gate surrounding the lush Lumpini Park, just meters away, I could see this dark green, scaly creature on a tree. Then the driver and I uttered the word in unison -- his fourth time and my first -- "hia!"

I whipped out my phone, took the picture above, and spent the remainder of the trip home concocting this blog in my mind.

Hia literally means monitor lizard. That's the primary meaning. Then, apparently, at some point in history, hia, the animal, became hia, the vile insult. How? Why? I have no clue.

My only guess is that people in the old days considered the presence of a monitor lizard in their immediate surrounding a bad thing. Bangkok, formerly dubbed "Venice of the East," used to have lots of canals and fewer roads and buildings. Sounds like a perfect place for these huge lizards who thrive in damp areas to me. Now, take into consideration that people in the old days had small animals (e.g. chickens, ducks) in the area underneath their homes to which these carnivorous creatures had easy access. When a hia is spotted around your home, it is definitely not an auspicious occasion. [Plus, not to offend lizard lovers, these things are ugly as heck. To be honest, right after I took that picture, I could feel the crème anglaise coming back up, hibiscus and all.]

An encounter with a monitor lizard, therefore, is considered by the superstitious as bad luck. Even an attempt in recent times to refer to a hia with the euphemistic, "tua nguen tua thong" (ตัวเงินตัวทอง), which roughly means "that which brings in good luck in the form of silver and gold," hasn't done much in erasing the negative connotation associated with this animal.

Re-branding fail.

Anyway, at least I came to understand that the driver was trying to get me to take a look at that huge monitor lizard -- a rare sight in the concrete jungle of Bangkok in modern times; he wasn't calling me a hia. Whew.



That got me thinking. Are there other animals that carry positive and negative connotations in the Thai culture?

Water buffaloes represent "stupidity" and sometimes "bull-headedness" in the Thai culture. The history of it is just as dubious as the history of how hia (animal) became hia (insult).

Hyperactive, unruly kids are often likened to monkeys. But this one is almost self-explanatory. Ditto with ants and bees which represent industriousness.

Do you know which one stumps me big time? Turtle.

Turtle (เต่า) -- it makes no sense to me either -- is slang for body odor. How did that happen? Don't ask me. Culture is a curious thing. Sometimes you can explain it; sometimes you just have to accept it without understanding it.

And until you come to accept that a turtle represents stinky armpits, you would never understand this most popular Thai TV commercial, which debuted almost a decade ago, about an orphaned little turtle looking for his mother or why the Thai people find this deodorant commercial so hysterically funny.

Thai Idiom: Playing a Fiddle to a Water Buffalo (สีซอให้ควายฟัง)

My reader, Sam, has suggested that I start a series on Thai idioms, and immediately I:

Thought that was a brilliant idea.

Was a bit miffed by the fact that it was he who thought of it and not I around whom the universe should revolve if it hasn't already.

Thanks, Sam. To you I dedicate this first post in the series.

Our first Thai idiom has been around for as long as I remember. You know how many idioms have fallen out of use, right? Well, not this one. This is a timeless classic which is still actively used among modern Thai speakers in all generations. See-so* hai** kwai** fang*** (สีซอให้ควายฟัง) or, literally, to play a Thai fiddle*** to a water buffalo, is one of those idioms that are self-explanatory among the Thai. Never mind who the audience is. Never mind that the idiom refers to "so" (ซอ), an ancient string instrument which only a handful of people know how to play. Never mind that it also refers to -- cough -- a water buffalo, an animal that most Thais -- even rice farmers -- don't have much to do with these days.

You say it; the Thai immediately understand it.

Not so for non-Thais. In order to appreciate this idiom, you need to know first that a water buffalo represents stupidity in the Thai culture. Only then would you come to see that playing the Thai fiddle (so) to a water buffalo is very much similar to the English idiom, "to cast pearls before swine," i.e. to offer something of value to someone whose lack of understanding prevents them from being able to appreciate it.

The only difference, which is quite subtle, is that "playing a fiddle to a water buffalo" has a narrower application. While the "pearls" in "to cast pearls before swine" could refer to both tangible and abstract things, the "playing of a fiddle" according to this Thai idiom is connected to something that is verbally expressed or audible, e.g. an explanation, a speech, a lecture, a sermon.

Example: Tom finally came to realize that explaining the importance of social media to a company that doesn't even care to establish its own website is like playing a fiddle to a water buffalo.

If you're wondering how a water buffalo has come to be associated with dumbness in our culture, consider the fact that we're kind of confused about how a pig has come to represent negative things from bad behavior to filth or even bigotry in other cultures, perhaps including yours, too. You see, pigs are cute and delicious to us.

Different things mean, uh, different things to peoples of different cultures (see my past article on this).

*Written in accordance with the Thai-to-English transliteration rules. I could also write "saw" to make it easier for English speakers, but I passive-aggressively decided not to do so. Either way, it rhymes with "awe."

**Rhymes with "my;" just a bit shorter.

***Rhymes with "lung."

***Okay, so a "so/saw" isn't exactly like a fiddle or a violin. You have to sit down in order to play it properly, and the instrument stands perpendicular to the floor as you play it as opposed to being mounted on your shoulder.

Stop Thoughting and Start FedExing

The Thai language is, in many ways, one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. Its grammatical structure is dead simple, requiring little more than the ability to string uninflected words together in the right order. No conjugation. No tenses. No persons. No genders. No voices. No cases. No morphological changes whatsoever.

True, there are 44 letters and tons of vowels that go all over the place. You also need to be mindful of the tones in order to prevent misunderstanding. But that's about it. How hard is it to learn those two things?

If you think Thai is difficult, try Russian or Arabic.


When you grow up speaking a loosely-structured language such as Thai, the English grammar can present a challenge. I once lived a hellish life trying to master the general rules of English grammar while committing to memory the 100,765 exceptions to those rules. The quality of my life drastically increased only when I stopped caring.

But lately I’ve come to see that somewhere in the midst of the iffy rules and regulations of the English language, especially the American English, lies freedom as vast as an ocean. I just didn’t see it before. Let me explain.

I was there when this happened. A father, whose first language isn't English, was confronting his son, whose first language is English, about something the latter had done.

“Why did you …… blah blah blah …?” The annoyed father inquired. Attempting to justify his action, the son explained, “But I thought I could ….. blah blah blah …!”
“I told you not to …. blah blah blah …!” The father was relentless.
The son stuck to his formula, “But I thought you said I could … blah blah blah …!”

The dialogue continued in this manner for a few more minutes until the father couldn’t take any more of the son’s ignorance plea. Grabbing his temples in exasperation, the father made audible the sentence he made up in his head, “You thought, you thought, you thought, you thought, you thought. STOP THOUGHTING!!!!”

Complete silence befell the room. A few seconds later, we all burst out laughing. What makes it funny is that, "stop thoughting" made perfect sense to all involved; "Stop thinking" would have been grammatically correct, but it would not have conveyed the intended meaning.

From that day forward, I have come to see the English language in a totally new light. Ah, the freedom of being able to mess up the grammar royally while making perfect sense.

Still not appreciative of the freedom of English? How about this? Any noun can be verbalized. It’s not always right, appropriate, or even allowed. But it rarely fails to communicate. In addition to the verbalization of nouns, there is the nominalization of verbs. As if that wasn't enough fun, there is also a huge assortment of prefixes and suffixes at your disposal with which you can use to create pretty much anything you want.

Here's an example. Let's create all kinds of stuff with the brand name FedEx.

I am going to FedEx a package to my cousin.
This is because he said to me that he wanted the package FedExed to him.
While my cousin is an avid FedExer, there are times when he under-FedExes for various reasons. But even in the state of hypoFedExation, he still outFedExes anyone in the state of Illinois.
In fact, his over-FedExing has earned him the title, John the FedExist, in the family.
I guess if he could recruit a bunch of FedExists, he could totally become their archFedExist.
Me? I am an ex-FedExer. Hard to believe, because, in the old days, I FedExed so much I was once accused of hyperFedExing. But I'm now a UPS girl. Of course, I know that being kind of FedExish in their operation, UPS is a FedExoid; I just like their delivery guys' brown uniform.

Sure, my highly FedExous cousin has relentlessly tried to FedExize me, but it has never worked on this non-FedExer. My anti-FedExism is just as strong as his ultra-FedExism. Needless to say, I'm totally immune to his fervent FedExization.

It's kind of annoying. Why would you try to FedExate anyone? What are you, a FedExeer? Keep that up and people will think you're inflicted with FedExosis or something.

But I don't know. I mean, one of these days if the brown guys lose my packages, I may allow myself to be beFedExed by my FedExotic cousin. After all, I can see some of his points.
But if that happens, who knows how long that will last? In theory, that which is beFedExable can be deFedExable also. That means if I can be beFedExed, then I can also be deFedExed, right?

I love English. Do you?

Learning English Through Songs: A Horse with No Name

The commentary is in green.

A Horse with No Name (America, 1972)

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
During the initial stage of his journey, the singer was looking at various forms of living beings both in the animal and plant kingdoms. Geological objects and unidentified miscellaneous items were also being observed.

The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound
The singer chanced upon a type of buzzing insect while noticing the absence of clouds in the sky. He also made a redundant statement about the heat being hot. The ground appeared parched, he says, and the atmosphere was audible.

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
The singer is now reporting that, at that point, he had been traveling through a wilderness on a nameless equestrian animal, and that being away from the rain made for a good feeling.

In the desert you can* remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
The singer is now stating what he perhaps believes to be gnomic truth through the use of the impersonal "you." Cause: There is nobody who inflicts pain upon anyone (in the desert) --> Effect: one can remember one's name in the desert. This statement could be a deeply sublime statement of truth; it could also be a non sequitur statement.

La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
The horse-borne singer is now uttering a series of the untranslatable particle "la." The purpose of this remains unknown. It is quite probable that this is a joyous expression of the lack of pain previously referred to. It could be his way of avoiding the question as to what exactly he was talking about in the previous verse.

After two days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
The singer is reporting that he was experiencing a severe case of sunburn two days into the journey.

After three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed
The singer is reporting that he was noticing the bed of the river three days into the fun-filled journey.

And the story it told of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead
The bed of the river gave him the impression that this used to be a river that once flowed and was now dead. This depressed him.

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can* remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
As if he wasn't sure whether we believed him the first time, the singer is now reiterating the point he has made previously, i.e. he was experiencing no pain because 1. being out of the rain gave him a good feeling, 2. there was no one in the desert to give him, or anyone else for that matter, any pain (this is also the reason why one can remember one's name when one is wandering in the desert).

La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
This is just a repeat of the unintelligible expression of joy.

After nine days I let the horse run free
'Cause the desert had turned to sea
After having wandered the desert for nine days, the singer is telling us that he parted way with the horse. The animal, he said, became useless now that the desert had become a sea.

There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
In the midst of a drastic change in scenery, certain things remained the same. The singer recalled seeing the same geological objects he had seen prior to the miraculous transfiguration of the desert.

The ocean is a desert with its life underground
And a perfect disguise above
The singer is opining that the ocean (which he saw?) was in actuality a desert with subterranean life. This, he says, is not apparent to the eye as it has been perfectly modified in both its manner and appearance in order to prevent recognition.

Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love
The singer is now apparently changing the subject to what he believes to be lying under multiple unidentified cities, i.e. a heart that is made of one of these materials listed in the noun section of this page. He contrasts the previous statement with the fact that multiple unidentified human beings will not generate a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection.

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain

La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
...
vide supra

*People can't decide whether it's "can" or "can't" here. The Water Buffalo says, when in doubt, err on the side of positivity.

Nominalization in English Can Be Tricky

Nominalization = Turning a verb or an adjective into a noun.

The process is fairly straightforward for the native speakers of English. You take a verb or an adjective and make a noun out of it.

In some cases, this can even be done without any morphological changes.
For example:
A - How could you insult (verb) him like that?
B - What?! You've got to be kidding me. That was an insult (noun)?! It was supposed to be a compliment!

There are no morphological differences between "insult" as a noun and "insult" as a verb. Other than the context, the only thing that sets the two apart is the accent shift: ínsult (n) vs. insúlt (v). Other examples include conduct (n) vs. conduct (v), progress (n) vs. progress (v), etc.

Most of the time, though, you see some changes. Speakers of English as an additional language (SEALs) with fairly advanced level of English competency are well aware of the various prefixal morphemes employed in the process of transforming adjectives and verbs into nouns.
dependent (adj) vs. dependence (n)
distant (adj) vs. distance (n)
generous (adj) vs. generosity (n)
remove (v) vs. removal (n)
depress (v) vs. depression (n)
consume (v) vs. consumption (n)
pronounce (v) vs. pronunciation (n)

Advanced SEALs are even aware of the trickier shifts in pronunciation and/or spelling in the process of nominalization - something that even some native speakers of English have not mastered.
Examples:
halve (v) vs. half (n)
bathe (v) vs. bath (n)
advise (v) vs. advice (n)
marinate (v) vs. marinade (n)
prophesy (v) vs. prophecy (n)

However, some SEALs, especially those in the basic level, often have a hard time with some verb-noun pairs that are etymologically related or morphologically similar but not used to denote the same meaning.
For example, consider these two verb-noun pairs:
deliver (v) vs. delivery (n)
deliver (v) vs. deliverance (n)
The first pair mostly occurs in the context that involves the post office or men in brown uniform driving around in brown trucks; the second pair is used a lot in religious texts. Most native speakers usually take this for granted until they hear someone who speaks little English talk about the miraculous delivery of the children of Israel from the hands of the Egyptians or how impressed they are with their UPS guy for the timely deliverance of their Amazon package.

Right part of speech; wrong word choice.

What about this pair: ignore (v) vs. ignorance (n)? This is a case of words of related etymology which have come to have different meanings in the current usage of the English language. You don't think this should present an issue for SEALs, but it sometimes does. Well, you've got appear/appearance, accept/acceptance, etc., right? So don't be surprised if a SEAL says to you, "Brad has been telephoning me every night and I've been ignoring him. Do you think he will understand that my ignorance of his calls means I'm not interested?"

Sometimes, mistakes stem from making a noun out of the wrong part of speech. I have witnessed several occurrences of misnominalization. Have you heard of the noun, "participance"? Here's how it came into existence:
We have three words here: participate, participation, participant. A participant of X is one who participates in X. Or you can say that one's participation in X makes one a participant of X. As mentioned above, nominalization stems from either a verb or an adjective. In this case, it is clear to those who know English well that participation (n) is the result of the nominalization of its verbal counterpart, participate. It would be silly to nominalize "participant" for it already is a noun.

What makes it tricky for some beginner SEALs is that the word "participant" looks a lot to them like an adjective even though, intellectually, they may know that it is a noun. There's something about the ending -ant that opens in some SEALs a floodgate of recollections of nouns ending with -ance which have been built on adjectival bases ending with -ant, e.g. distant-distance, vigilant-vigilance, important-importance. It may not make sense to you, but to some of us something like, "the host of the event was very encouraged by the enthusiastic participance of all participants," sounds perfectly fine.

Reliant-reliance. Arrogant-arrogance. Compliant-compliance. What else? Fire hydrant-fire hydrance.

In case you're wondering, this post was inspired by a letter I'd received from a friend in Czech Republic who solemnly shared with me his feeling about wanting to stay in one place for a long time instead of moving around wherever work would take him: "In my childhood, I and my parents moved to many places very much, and I always thought to myself that in my adultery I would not do the same."

Can you retrace his steps leading to "adultery"? This is very easy if you were once a beginner SEAL.

There's more to be said about this topic. But this is all for now.

Learn How to Make the Most of Babel Fish Part One

Note from the Buffalo: Although pseudonyms are used here, any similarity to actual persons is not coincidental. If this sounds familiar to you, well, then it's probably you I'm writing about. I'm looking at you, Josh. - The Buffalo

Depending on the way I feel about the person, my reactions upon receiving a message in a foreign language that is clearly a product of free online translator range from, "Aw, that's sweet. He doesn't know Italian, but he wants to impress me ..." to "Yikes, this is embarrassing. Stick with English, please."

As useful as Babel Fish is, there is only so much it can do for you. To make the most of the translation engine, you need to know how to manipulate it. No, you don't need to learn the language itself; you just need to equip yourself with the basics of how the language works. Admittedly, this takes some learning and a certain level of linguistic aptitude. At the very least, it takes quite a bit of curiosity and observation.

But if you cannot or will not take the time to learn the basics, being aware of one simple thing will save yourself from the embarrassment of being found out you don't really know the language and that you got that Italian sentence from Babel Fish. That one simple thing is this:

Direct, word-for-word translation almost always fails.

That's it. Of course, there are a few other things to keep in mind. But this is the bare minimum requirement. This alone should instill the fear of god in people every time they use Babel Fish and hope to get away with it. Unless the person knows -- really knows -- this one simple rule, Babel Fish in that person's hand is as dangerous as a mandoline slicer in the hand of a clumsy cook.

But that is just a good starting point. In order to turn a translation engine from a potential source of embarrassment into a useful tool, it is necessary to acquaint yourself with some of the basics.

First, a real life example.

While on a trip to Ukraine, a group of us from the US were having breakfast with a group of Ukrainian friends. One of my American colleagues, Josh, just learned how to say, "Good morning," in Russian the day before and he enthusiastically greeted everybody with, "Доброе утро!" Nothing wrong with that. Доброе утро is indeed how the Russian greet each other in the morning.

But then his lack of understanding of how language works became clear. Sergei, one of our Ukrainian friends, knowing we were still trying to fight off jet lag, asked Josh in English how his sleep was. Wanting to impress Sergei with the little Russian that he knew, Josh answered, "Доброе!" Sergei had a funny look on his face, but didn't say anything. I knew exactly what was going on, but decided to shut up and eat my morning sardines and cucumber spears quietly while mentally composing this post. Later in the day, Viktor, another Ukrainian, asked Josh, in English, what he thought of Ukrainian food. "Oh, доброе, доброе. I love it," enthusiastically answered Josh. Again, as to be expected, Viktor had a big question mark on his face, although he didn't say anything.

What happened?

• First, Josh learned that 'доброе утро' is Russian for 'good morning.'
• Then he assumed that 'good morning' in Russian was a direct, word-for-word translation of 'good morning' in English, i.e. adjective 'good' followed by the noun which it modifies, 'morning.'
• That assumption led him to develop a false theory in his mind that 'доброе' = 'good' and 'утро' = 'morning.'
• Operating on that assumption, when Sergei asked how his sleep was, Josh answered, "Доброе!" meaning "Good!" (in his mind, that is).
• Operating on that same assumption, when Viktor asked Josh what he thought of the food, Josh once again answered, "Доброе!" or, in his universe, "Good!"

The problem is that доброе doesn't exactly mean "good;" it means "kind." Literally, доброе утро means "kind (or pleasant) morning (to you.)" Josh's messed-up theory led him to think that доброе means 'good.' Josh, therefore, used доброе every time he wanted to say, "good." This makes no sense to Russian speakers.

To avoid being like Josh and to know how to manipulate a translation engine for your benefit, here are some of the basics:

1. Be aware that some languages have grammatical features not present in English.

Josh's blooper is very useful, because it is wrong in multiple levels. Apart from the failure in the area of sentence structure, his use of доброе to say "good" also demonstrates the failure to understand that a random foreign word you see or hear may be an inflected form and therefore cannot be used outside the context which determines its form without running a risk of violating grammatical rules.

Though you grammarians out there will have readily understood the previous sentence, please let me clarify it for those whose lives don't revolve around syntax.

Доброе is the neuter form of the adjective добрый which means "kind." English, in the present form, does not require inflection according to gender. Therefore, it is helpful to keep in mind that even though you don't have to worry about inflecting something according to its gender when you speak English, that's not the case in other languages, e.g. Spanish, Russian, French, German.

Утро functions here as a neuter singular noun and the adjective which modifies it, according to the rule of noun-adjective agreement, needs to be inflected accordingly; hence доброе (neuter) as opposed to добрый (masculine) or добрая (feminine).

Here's another way to explain the erroneous way in which Josh used доброе. Someone (who knows too little French) has learned that "le chat est beau" means "the cat is beautiful." What s/he doesn't know is that the adjective "beau" takes on that form because it modifies a masculine noun, chat. Imagine that person, upon being presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers, exclaims in delight, "Oh, beau!" That, to the French, is similar to Josh's доброе to the Russian.

When it comes to grammatical gender, it also helps to remember one other thing: while Babel Fish is pretty good at correctly matching an adjective with a noun (e.g. La fille est jolie as opposed to La fille est joli.), when it comes to translating sentences with the first person pronoun as the subject, it always assumes the masculine gender and inflects everything based on that assumption. This is because Babel Fish does not, and cannot, know whether you're male or female.

Here's an example: You enter, "I am sorry," and hit English to French. You get, "Je suis désolé." That's fine if you're a man. But if you're a woman, it helps to know that the adjective désolé is inflected according to the engine's assumption that the "I" here is a man. An informed female user of Babel Fish would know to alter the result to "Je suis désolée." But those who use Babel Fish with absolutely no knowledge of what to watch out for, or the many ways in which the translation engine can fail you, usually do not think of these things. When you deal with languages such as French, German, Spanish, or Russian, be careful of this.

More to come in Part Two. Please stay tuned.

Don't Hurt Your Interpreter: Don't Build Contents on English

In my late teen years in Bangkok, my part-time gigs included, though were not limited to, teaching Thai on a one-on-one basis to expats living in Bangkok and serving as live interpreters for foreigners conducting businesses in Thailand. For the most part, I loved what I did. And earning some cash in the process certainly didn't hurt.

Teaching Thai to expats was fun and very educational. For the first time, I learned to approach my own native tongue with a perspective of an outsider thereby recognizing syntactical and semantic idiosyncrasies that most native speakers of Thai don't pause to think about, because the language comes so naturally to us. Most of my students were Bangkok-based NGO workers who came from all over the world, and I learned so much about many different cultures and languages during that time.

It took one bad apple for me to quit teaching Thai to expats for good. After a few weeks, it became increasingly clear to me that my 40-something, married, Swiss student was much more interested in having a girl sit next to him than actually learning any Thai. One fine afternoon, after being made an unwilling recipient of a firm and lingering pat on the butt, I decided I'd had enough.

But that part, though icky, didn't make me foam at the mouth. It wasn't a desirable situation, but it was manageable. I just walked out mid-lesson, never to return, with a Swiss handprint on my skirt but my dignity intact (I think).

What made me foam at the mouth was the interpreter job that repeatedly put me in a position where I really, really wanted to smack someone up the side of their head.

In a situation where an interpreter is needed, it is safe to assume that the speaker and the audience do not share a common language; otherwise simultaneous interpretation wouldn't be necessary. Sure, English has been the lingua franca for so long that it's hard to imagine anyone anywhere in the world not knowing at least some of it. But when you put a group of speakers of English as an additional language (SEALs) with varying degrees of exposure to English in one place, it's wise to assume the worst.

The American's fondness of building contents upon acrostics/acronyms and the semantic flexibility and spellings of English words is -- my good gawd -- astounding. Seriously, it needs to stop.

Consider the following:

• A supervisor: "The philosophy of our organization can be summed up in the word "LOVE" - Labor, Overtime (with no compensation), Vacation? Forget it, and Exploitation of the workers," Now tell me, how in sweet holy Hades can you interpret a speech like this -- live -- to an audience whose first language isn't English? Do you expect your interpreter to come up, on the friggin' spot, with a word for "LOVE" in a different language which comprises four letters that happen to serve as the initial letters for four words that convey the four points you try to make? Don't be that guy.
• A preacher: "To make this sermon easy to recall, I'd like you to remember the four Ws that jeopardize your spiritual life: wantonness, waggishness, wastefulness, and wegotism ..." Yeah, better pray your interpreter can find four words in the audience's language that all begin with the same letters and perfectly communicate your divine message.
• An inspirational speaker: "Remember, there's no I in TEAM." No kidding ...
• An art teacher: "You have to practice. Of course, painting is hard. That's why they put "pain" in there." Teacher, it's not painting that gives me pain; it's you.
  
• A politician: "War doesn't determine who is right; it determines who is left." I don't know ... but it sounds like you're declaring war with your interpreter and audience right about now.
• A first-time overseas traveler: "Knock, knock!" Somebody kill me now ...
  

Documenting My Thoughts on Intercultural Communications: Your "Big Words" Are Not My "Big Words" Part Two

In Documenting My Thoughts on Intercultural Communications: Your "Big Words" Are Not My "Big Words" Part One, I began my thesis on how speakers of English as an additional language (SEALs) and a native speakers of English (NSEs) have different definitions of what a "big" word is (whether or not they realize or admit it).

The idea which I had proposed -- albeit incoherently due to me getting sleepy half way through the composition -- is that when a NSE finds him/herself in a situation wherein s/he is communicating with a SEAL whose level of English is far from being near-native, s/he is often inclined to significantly dumb down his/her language in order to be accommodating. Most of the time, from my experience, the intention is good, but the way in which it is done is often misguided and consequently results in miscommunication.

If you can make something simpler, you certainly should. So I'm not suggesting that a NSE resist the urge to simplify the way s/he communicates to a SEAL. S/he just has to scratch where it itches. And where it itches for SEALs is often not where NSEs would normally think to scratch. Let's go back to what I mentioned before about how simple words make for the most innocent-looking landmine. As cited in Part One, the most commonly-used verbs, e.g. verb to be, are almost always irregularly declined. And here's one thing I have learned over and over and over these past several years of learning different languages:

The level of difficulty of a given word has more to do with the width of its semantic range and the number of ways the word can be used than the level of difficulty in spelling, pronouncing, or translating it. Certainly, it has very little to do with how frequently the word is used.

Of this I am confident. But feel free to disagree.

"Are you saying that the sentence 'His explanation discombobulated her," has better chances of being understood by a SEAL than, 'His explanation throws her off,"?

Well, yes and no.

I'm not saying that discombobulate is an easy word for a SEAL; it's not. But between "throw off" and "discombobulate," the former is more likely to cause miscommunication when a NSE is communicating to a SEAL with rudimentary level of English. Unless the SEAL is well-versed in all sorts of phrasal verbs, what they all mean, and how they're used, chances are s/he will think s/he understands what it means to "throw someone off." And "think" is the key word here.

You see, the best word to use is "confuse," but the second best isn't "throw off." In fact, of the three choices: confuse, discombobulate, and throw off, the last one is the worst.

Now I know that this seems counter-intuitive to most NSEs and it is. NSEs are familiar with "throw off" and have come to see "throw off" as easy. After all, even a first-grader understands words like "throw off." Right?

"Throw off" is not easy to SEALs, however. A SEAL may think s/he knows what it means, but oftentimes that is not the case. And what makes it complicated is the very fact that both the SEAL and the NSE think that the SEAL understands "throw off."

In any kind of communication, an ideal situation is for both parties to understand each other perfectly. The worst situation, most people think, is that one party doesn't understand the other and vice versa. I disagree. I think the worst situation is when an assumption of understanding or a false understanding occurs. Both parties are under a false impression that communication is successful, that understanding has taken place. Now, that, I think is the most dangerous situation.

This is why it's better to use a low-frequency word like discombobulate than a high-frequency phrasal verb like throw off. The SEAL knows right away, whether or not s/he admits it,* that s/he does not know what discombobulate means. A curious, enthusiastic SEAL learner will either ask the NSE to define or paraphrase it on the spot or make a mental note to look up that word to find out what it means. A more apathetic SEAL may not do anything for s/he does not care all that much. Nonetheless, one thing is certain: that SEAL realizes s/he doesn't know what combobulate means.

Only when one recognizes there's a problem can one think to find remedy.

That's very unlikely to be the case with throw off. The SEAL knows what "throw" means and chances are s/he also knows what "off" means. What s/he does not and cannot know unless s/he is properly educated in this matter is that the definition of "throw off" has little, if anything, to do with the primary definition of either throw or off. So s/he goes on thinking s/he knows what the NSE means when s/he doesn't.

A word like discombobulate, on the other hand, will cause a big red achtung sign to pop up in the SEAL's mind. A phrasal verb like "throw off" usually does not.

Hence the danger.

Think of other phrasal verbs:

She takes after her father.
Dude, check that girl out!
That jerk in the red truck cut me off, so I flipped him one.
Etc.

The last example is my favorite. It's a little dialogue I made up myself to make a point when I conduct trainings in intercultural communications:

Boy: How did grandpa die, Mom?
Mom: He was old, honey. His heart just gave out.
Boy: Oh, so if grandpa's heart had given in, he wouldn't have died?

See? These things are easy to NSEs and that has led to a false assumption that they are also easy to SEALs. Not true.

Again: the difficulty of a word (or a lexical unit) has more to do with the width of its definition and usage than how long it is or how hard it is to spell/pronounce it.

Look up "emancipation," "interchangeability" or "infirmity" and you'll see that the semantic range is quite narrow. These words are not used to refer to a wide spectrum of things. Their equivalents in other languages aren't very fluid either.

Now look up words like "set," "put," or "pass" and you'll see that they cover much wider semantic ranges. Used in conjunction with different adverbs, they mean different things. These things present a bigger problem.

Example: Your friend set you up with a guy. On the fist date, not only did he make a pass at the waitress, he also said things to put you down. So you put on a smile and pretended you enjoyed the evening while thinking to yourself, "This guy? Nah, I'll pass." After a long evening of putting up with his behavior, you vowed to yourself that you would never again put your hopes up whenever that friend of yours sets you up with someone.

Another example is found in my previous post regarding how the use of the lethal phrasal verbs leads to miscommunication. In retrospect, had my supervisor used the verb "disarm" or "the alarm will sound," etc., chances are I would have understood.

Am I making sense? Or did I just discombobulate you?


*Ever heard of the concept of "losing face" in some cultures?