thanks NBC

[G_V]

for teaching my wife " what the hell!"

i can't wait for her first "sonofabitch!"

[Mick]

Shortly after Li's arrival, she learned a few choice phrases as well. From a friend she learned "What the f***". Well, one day we were in Hobby Lobby and she was looking at some item and she says loudly to me, "What the...".

 

Had to explain that this was not a phrase to use in public places.

[tonado]

Don't let her watch "South Park", the movie.

[Charlotte]

Shortly after Li's arrival, she learned a few choice phrases as well. From a friend she learned "What the f***". Well, one day we were in Hobby Lobby and she was looking at some item and she says loudly to me, "What the...".    

Had to explain that this was not a phrase to use in public places.

Mick, this is the advantage of having an American husband!

It is important to understand what people are talking, good or bad when they get too slangy or like the hollywood movies, but need to be very careful about imitating -- very tricky. I would avoid slangs until I am 100% sure and feel comfortable using it. People do judge by appearance, like it or not. It is OK for Americans to say: "He don't know." But if I say it, they would think, I don't know English just because I look Chinese. We were taught double negative means positive, e.g. "He does not know anything, or he knows nothing." But how many of us have heard: "He don't know nothing" here in this country. If a Chinsese talks like that, they automatically assume he does not know English. An American talks like that, he is just less educated! Here is what I told my daughter: try to understand what they say, be very careful about what you follow.

[tonyontherock]

When my kid was four years old, I was driving and stopped at the light, in the summer time. I heard my kid was shouting "F>>> U" . Turned around, he even had his middle finger out, pointing at the other driver.

I realized where he learned his English. I used to talk like that all the time. I had to. That was the only way I could bond with my clients. Most of them start a sentence with the F word and end it with the same, for emphasis. Depending on the tone, it may mean good or bad. It can get confusing when you are interviewing a client who allegedly raped an underage girl. Once I had to shout at one in something like" Yo, Can you f>>>ing stop using the F>>>ing F word! F>>> Man, you F>>>ing got me all messed up. Did you F>>>ing F>>> the F>>>ing bitch or Not?"

Who cares? If you can really talk like one from the streets, they ask you "Man, yo from F>>> Baltimore?" It always made me feel that I was born and grew up on the corner of Lambardi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.

[Guest blsqueaky]

I remember when I was last in GZ, and watching some of the chinese movies with english subtitles. What I saw, I could not believe. There was no censership. I remember one movie, the mans girlfriend was throwing his stuff out of a window, and the subtitles where "Damn Bit*&, you crazy, this is Bull*%^$, Jes*$% Ch$#*&, WTF, and I could not believe this, and my wife was sitting right beside me and laughing.

[Robert S.]

Tony, that was so damn funny!!! I bet you do a great imitation of Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver. "What are you lookin' at?"

 

Mark, it sounds like the subtitle makers were giving a literal translation, you know.

 

After several years in the Marine Corps my speech was not exactly as genteel as it had been in prep school. But I need to clean up my act a little more, I am being a bad influence.