Culture – The Bittesuite

3 Instances of Correct Grammar Making the Day

Life is full of smile-inducing moments. Right? Someone holds the door open for you with an inviting grin. Another person moves out of your way when you’re in a hurry. Yet another gives their seat on a train to someone who has a hard time standing.

Just recently, I’ve caught myself grinning like an idiot over something I had never considered before. Some people (and don’t ask me how) remember English grammar lessons they received in High School. These super humans are capable of truly amazing feats. Avoiding dangling prepositions. Treating collective nouns like plural nouns. Using direct and indirect objects correctly. Truly mindblowing stuff.

I witness the three above often enough that I can simply describe the experience as “pleasant.” There are three others, however, that actually get me excited. These are bits of grammar that I hear used correctly approximately 0% of the time. Listen in your daily life, and chances are you’ll notice the same. When they are used correctly, I’m so surprised and delighted that I’ll probably smile about it again the following day.

And here’s the thing: I’m a member of the school of thought that considers language (especially English) fluid and malleable. It’s beyond cool that “classical” English phases out over time as its speakers break the rules more reliably and in larger numbers. What this implies about the influence of second-language speakers on English is freaking awesome. Nonetheless, hearing classical grammar in everyday speech makes me smile like an idiot.

Let’s do this.

Data

“Data” is a plural noun. Just about every time you hear the word, however, it’s treated like a singular noun. “The data doesn’t support your conclusion,” is what you normally hear. “The data don’t support your conclusion” is what you should hear.

“Datum” is the singular version of the noun. Who says “datum,” though? On the other hand, when is that word ever even necessary? I can’t think of a single reason to speak about a single datum at a time outside of some esoteric database diagnostic scenario. So, we don’t reasonably have to worry about looking weird in front of our friends and colleagues.

I have a lecturer in my Master program who uses “data” as a plural noun. It feels so good in my nerdy nerd of a soul every time I hear it.

Number/Amount

To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone use these correctly. “Number” describes a quantity you can measure. “Amount” describes a quantity you can’t measure. I have an amount of water. I have a number of liters of water. I can only have water. I can’t have 1 water or 2 waters. I can, however, have 1 liter or 2 liters of water.

In the real world, what you always hear is the word “amount.” Your friend will tell you about the astounding “amount” of people in the subway this morning. That implies that an indeterminable number of humans were melted, and the subway was full of their goo.

Oh, no. Maybe that is what he saw this morning.

I’ll wait. One day, I’ll hear “number” when I would otherwise hear “amount.” Unless I manage to contain my glee, I’ll probably be committed for mental illness soon after.

Among/Between

Every now and then, I hear these used in the classical way. Academics know the difference. Business people do not. That’s the general rule I’ve observed over the courses of my studies and career.

“Between” relates two objects to one another. We have two apples between the two of us.

“Among” relates three or more objects to one another. There are three martians among our group of ten people.

Nobody ever says “among” when they mean between. They do, however, routinely say “between” when they mean “among.” Between the three of us, we have one college degree. That makes me cringe in a way similar to the way “amount” in the wrong circumstance makes me cringe.

When I do hear the word “among,” though, it’s sunshine and cervezas for the rest of the day.

What if We Stopped Learning to Speak Other Languages?

When’s the last time you learned a second language? What was learning it like?

I’ve been learning second languages for awhile, now. I made it through the German classroom circuit about a year ago, and now I’m in my streets phase with the language. In college, I studied Mandarin. As a child and then again in Junior High and High School, I learned Spanish. Sure, every language has its weird/unique mind games it can play with non-natives: German breaks more rules than it even has, learning to speak and write Mandarin basically means learning two languages at once, and Spanish has as many verb tenses as it has polite expressions that mean something dirty if you wink while you say them (lots and lots).

Despite the idiosyncrasies, learning a language is always the same in at least one respect: you can understand it before you can speak it.

And what was it like when you started using that shiny new second language you studied? Or, what’s it like using it now that it’s worn, flexible and maybe a little dirty? Have you ever wished you could simply communicate in your native tongue for just one second because you knew you’d be funnier, smarter, friendlier, more eloquent if doing so were appropriate?

Those two ideas have been stuck in my head for a good while, and they’re really making me wonder if life would improve if we all stopped learning to speak second languages. I know, I know, there’s at least one huge problem with that. I’ll get to it in a bit.

For now, imagine what it would be like if you only had to learn to understand other languages. For one, it would be much easier to integrate one’s self into a foreign society. When it comes to understanding, you’re usually ready to go after a few months in a local language class. If teachers could remove all of the speaking exercises from class, fluency in understanding would come even quicker. Perhaps this would make learning more than one second language more common (among those who aren’t officially language students or don’t speak a Latinate language natively).

An implication of this is that learning a language could be an exercise in adaptation rather than preparation. We could wait until it looks like needing the language is likely before we commit to learning it. Contrast that with the current approach: we spend years before and during college learning a language that might never be relevant during our particular lives. I, for example, studied Spanish as a child, because Mexico and Texas are sharing each other’s cultures more and more every year. As it turns out, Spanish has become very useful to me during my particular life. My girlfriend is Mexican, after all.

And now we live in Germany. Predictable needs for language skills, right?

Another aspect of life made better is maintaining proficiency in a language when you’re not using it. Lack of practice has to be the most common reason people are weak in a second language, even though they’ve studied it. My Mandarin was great when I was in college. Now, I sound like I’m trying to teach myself quantum physics, and that’s because I’ve been in precisely 0 situations that demanded my control of Mandarin since then.

To practice speaking, you need a speaking partner. Until you move to the country that speaks your second language natively, finding a speaking partner is tough. Practicing listening, though? Honing your ability to understand the language? That’s a piece of cake, no matter where you are. Subscribe to a podcast, tell YouTube you live in the language’s home country, watch movies in that language, find music on Spotify, Google online news media in the language, download a language pack for that video game you play once a day, change the OS language on your PC. Options for improving understanding are all over the place.

So, what would a bilingual conversation feel like? I think it feels really cool. Roxana and I have them every now and then. The results are maximum clarity and almost maximum comfort for both parties–Rox freaks out a little bit after a few minutes of conversation 🙂 Incidentally, this is also how almost the entire television show “Lillyhammer” works–the main character speaks English, while every other character speaks Norwegian. Bilingual conversations look cool, as well.

I’ve tried the approach with some German friends (without them knowing this is what I was doing). For about a minute, we’re having an especially cool conversation. They’re speaking German, while I’m speaking English. My mind feels fresh and energetic. I’m relaxed, as I assume are they. After the minute, though, my German friend will usually switch to English, presumably because they think I prefer English and they want to be nice. Then, I feel lazy and switch to German, and by the end of the conversation, I’m tired. It’s ultimately a really good mental exercise, but I’ve learned without a doubt that speaking is more mentally taxing than is understanding.

Despite its coolness, this supposed solution does not solve an existing problem. We could call it the Lingua Franca problem.

Today, the western world’s Lingua Franca is English–it’s the bridge language that most commonly connects people who don’t speak each other’s native language. If the bridge doesn’t connect both sides of the conversation, however, communication is not possible. That’s not necessarily praise or criticism. Just reality.

The “understanding only” system I describe in this post doesn’t fix this problem. At best, a conversation in the “understanding only” system would be one-sided if the language I speak doesn’t appear on the list of languages you understand. Communication between us would not be effective, unless you were my boss and our company ran on peon blood.

In fact, there could be no Lingua Franca in the “understanding only” system. We’d all be proficient speakers in only one language. If everyone on earth learned to understand English, that would mean nothing if the English-speaking world refused to learn to understand other languages. Or, what if English speakers tended to learn other languages, but not my language? That would suck–I would need to learn to speak English, even though speakers of other languages could get by with their comfortable native tongue.

And UN meetings would probably be complete messes.

But, every solution to international communication so far has its problems. It’s hard to motivate the world to learn and practice Esperanto. And, when an existing world language is the Lingua Franca (the current system), that arguably gives countries where the language is native an upper hand on the world stage.

Thought experiments are fun, aren’t they?

People at Parties Abroad

…when we Americans get excited, we tend to emit a telltale “Wooooo!” sound that turns other nationalities (especially the English) into spontaneous Steve Irwins…

An English friend tries attracting nearby Americans with the telltale "WOOOO!" call. — An English friend tries attracting nearby Americans with the telltale “WOOOO!” call.

One of the great joys of living abroad is making friends with people from other countries–expats and natives alike. It’s an absolute riot comparing cultures. For instance, the English have right around 1 million ways to call a person “drunk.” I can think of 6 that we use in the States. And one of them is “drunk.” Also, when we Americans get excited, we tend to emit a telltale “Wooooo!” sound that turns other nationalities (especially the English) into spontaneous Steve Irwins who had prior been on the hunt for precisely our elusive kind. “Blimey! Lookee there! That sound means we’ve stumbled upon our first American of the night!”

One of the greater joys of living abroad, then, is partying with those international friends.

This is the beginning of series of posts called “People at Parties Abroad.” After over a year here, I’m convinced that I’m seeing patterns–patterns that tie behavior at parties to a person’s country of origin. Each post in this series will be somewhat of a straw-man portrayal of a single nationality at a party abroad. They’ll describe what I see. Over and over again. Every time I go to a party. I’ll look forward to comments about whether or not other people notice the same patterns.

I’ll start with us–the Americans–and our desire to be honorary members of everyone else’s culture, whether we’re invited in or not. From there, I’ll cover Mexicans, who want everyone else to be an honorary member of their culture, whether they asked for it or not. After them, I think I’ll cover the French, but I’m not convinced that I know enough about them, yet. From then on out, it’s just about which patterns I notice first.

If you find this even half as fascinating as I do, bookmark this page and check back often. This should be fun.

Everybody’s Hilarious in a Foreign Language Course

All of us, from everywhere, sound hilarious when we try to learn a foreign language. It would seem that we from the US, at our worst, are the most hilarious*, but I promise you can find something funny about the way everyone speaks.

What’s interesting, though, is how each of us sounds hilarious. Over the course of my 4 German courses to date, our teachers have corrected the way we speak about 1 million times each. Especially Valentin, though because he’s a boss. I really wish I could get a picture of Valentin looking especially teacherly (a bit hunched in his seat, hands clasped in front of his face, looking at a student sideways through squinted eyes, on the edge of his seat, waiting to see if the student’s answer is correct). But, I can’t take don’t-worry-about-me-bro-I’m-just-texting-someone photos with my dedicated digital camera.

Anyway, I’m noticing patterns among Valentin’s and other teachers’ corrections, specifically when it comes to pronunciation. Since Monday’s the greatest day of the week, here are some smile-worthy observations.

Different Nationalities and their Problems with German Pronunciation

American: Yeah, I’ll do us, first. Our major problem (this one actually comes straight from Valentin) is how we pronounce “u” and “ü.” He rags on me for this maybe 100 million times per class, assuring me that “yes, you all [Americans] have problems with that.” “U” sounds like “oo” in America-speak, while we don’t have a “ü” sound. You have to move your bottom jaw forward, pull your tongue back and purse your lips when you say it. If mouths had professions, Germany’s would be a circus acrobat.
Spanish/Latin American: They add syllables to the beginnings of words–especially the ones that begin with “S.” They also add a syllable before an “s,” when the “s” follows another hard consonant. “Strasse” becomes “eh-strasse,” for example.
Italian: They add syllables to the ends of words that end in consonant sounds. “Mein,” becomes “Mein-eh,” for example. This one gets funny, because many German feminine words end in the “-eh” sound, so the teacher often corrects their grammar instead of their pronunciation. Then, the student corrects the teacher’s correction.
Japanese: They just add syllables. A Japanese girl in my last class told me that it may be because Japanese words usually have the speaker bouncing from consonant to vowel very smoothly, while German tends to connect many syllables with back-to-back consonant sounds. Think of the name “Hideki.” Every vowel sound touches a consonant sound, and vice versa. Now, think of “Krankenwagen.” Going from “n” to “k,” and from “n” to “w,” might be uncomfortable for a Japanese native at first. They would say something close to “Kran-o-ken-o-wagen.” Of all the wrong ways to pronounce a language’s words, they definitely have the coolest.
Slavic/Uralic Languages: So far, I’ve been classmates with Bulgarians, Russians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Croatians, Belorussians, and Hungarians, so they’re the groups from whom I’m getting this pattern. Especially in two-syllable nouns, they accent the second syllable, while Germans often accent the first one. Germans say “BAHN-hof,” while a member of this group really wants to say “bahn-HOF.” Valentin rags on these of my classmates for this almost as often as he rags on me for “ü.”

And there you have it–those are the patterns that have come to light so far. I find this kind of thing is hilariously interesting (a single activity from the points of view of different nationalities), so I had to write about it. I hope you find this either hilarious or interesting, too.

If not: ohgodforgivemeryan@gmail.com.

* I’ve had this “people speak funny” conversation in real life with people from other countries. In each one, they bring up how funny Americans usually sound when they try to speak another language. When they explain what they mean, they always imitate us with “r”-heavy sentences. Come to think of it, we do have an unusual “r.” Everyone else seems to have either silent Rs, or super-mouth-backflip-roll Rs. So maybe that’s why we sound so funny.