Day 20: Improve Your English

[Ute42]

.

I've been letting my place in Germany for 16 years through all kinds of distribution channels. Until 2017 all my guests were German. In January 2018 I decided to start listing with airbnb and I thought, I might now get international guest, time to polish up my English.

At the time my english was kind of ok on a smalltalk-level, what I was completely lacking was the vocabulary around hosting, bedding, cleaning and the like. In order to improve my english in this specialised field, I decided to start reading in the english community center. Because refering words would pop up in this forum for sure and they did.

Whenever I found a word that I didn't know I looked it up in some online dictionary. Next thing I did I created a spreadsheet with all these new words, an airbnb glossary. This is how it looks:

Sometimes though an online dictionary is not sufficant to find out the meaning of a word or an expression. A while ago some Robin in Australia opened a thread entitled:

• Stirring the pot

I couldn't find out what that means. So I sent Robin a privat message and asked him flat out: Robin, what means stirring the pot? Here's his answer:

• I will answer one expression with another....Stirring the pot is linked with Playing the devils advocate!! When you 'stir the pot', you keep the contents on the move, you stop them from boiling over but you keep some action going on in the pot! To bring that into context here Uté it means you keep the thought alive and in others minds by reactivating a worthwhile discussion. You keep on bringing up the same conversation.

Ok – thank You, I've got it. But Robin didn't stop explaining. He continuoued:

• And by playing 'Devils Advocate' you deliberately bring alternative ideas to the conversation. You will state an opinion you don't agree with for the sake of promoting conversation on a subject! Mark Rutte the Dutch Prime Minister may say that no more funds should be made available for EEU bailouts and Angela Merkel may disagree with him and say Germany and France have a duty to support the European community! Although you Ute, agree with Angela Merkel you deliberately take the side of Mark Rutte in order to bring new ideas up that may make both sides agree.

This was not the end of his explanation. Then he talked about the expressiveness of the english language, that it's like a river flowing to the sea, about channels and ditches, empty streams,

tributaries, directions and the ocean.

You must know one thing: Whenever You drop @Robin4  two lines, he comes back with 37 lines. Robin loves to write, he's a great writer an many people in the CC love him for that.

By the way: I learned another word from Robin:

• Jibber Jabber

Have You ever seen that before? I found the word in one of Robins posts:

• But company 'jibber jabber' like that don't instill me with confidence.

I forgot which company he was talking about, but it doesn' matter in this context anyway.

I continued to read in the english CC and while cruising through the lines, again and again I came across the word „bleep“, and it was always accompanied with 2 asterix' in front and in the back:

• **bleep**.

It's easy of course to find out what bleep means, that's the sound a bird makes when it tweets. But **bleep** came up in so many places and in so many contexts and none of them was bird-relatet. I just couldn't figure out what the meanig of it was.

And then this happened: In 2015 I hosted a group of 4 young religious women. While checking them in they told me that they will not check in, because they didn't like my place. I was furious. This was the first time in one and a half decades that someone refused to check in. In 2018 I told this story in the Comminity Center. I wrote:

When I looked how it came out in the community center, I saw this:

• For the first time in 15 years, 4 young religious womed from **bleep**,
  all wearing a **bleep**, refused to check into my place bc they didn't like it.

Aaaahaaaaa, now I understood. Airbnb has a discriminating word detector in place and whenever such a word pops up, it get's erased and replaced by **bleep**. All of a sudden everything made sense. Ever since this incident, whenever I talk about people from that area, I refer to them as „People from an area that starts with „a“ and ends with „rab“. The airbnb detector never cought me on that.

My best source of new vocbulary is the lovely @Susan17  in Dublin. While an average english native speaker has a vocabulary of 20.000 word, I think she has 60.000 words to choose from and she does. Here's a list of words I found in her recent threads:

• incendiary, knick-knack, skedaddling, flashing shamrock deely-boppers, Begorrah, malice or sleight, misogynistic, funnelling, beano, feisty side, Geezer, pesky, besmirch, abdicate, villain, astroturfing,

I had to look all these words up. Meanwhile I have restrikted myself to not reading more than 2 Susanposts per day, because it's so much work for me. Same as with Robin in Australia, sometimes I cannot find out the meaning of the words she uses through a dictionary, so I have to ask her. Recently she used the word:

• jack sh*t

Did You see how clever she is? She's putting an asterix into the second word to fool the airbnb bad word detector. So I had to asked her and here's her answer:

• Well, "jack sh*t" is a slang term that originated from the poker world, and refers to drawing an opening hand of Jack, two, unsuited (of different suits - hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades) - and it's considered to be the worst possible hand you could start with.
  
  - Did you have a good hand?"
  - "No, I had jack sh*t"
  
  In terms of everyday use, there's not a whole lot of difference in the terms "sh*t" and "jack sh*t", and both are interchangeable.

So far we've been talking abount reading in the Community Center. Now what about writing?

If You are from South America, Asia, Greenland or whereever You may come from, don't be shy to write in this community center of ours. I have never seen anybody making a remark about someone elses english being poor. This really never happened. If You don't get something, look it up and if that is not enough, ask the Person who wrote it.

You may end up with a new CC-friend in Ireland or in Australia.

Schöne Weihnachten und ein gutes neues Jahr.

[Helen427]

@Branka-and-Silvia0@J-Renato0 @Clara116 @Ute42 @Sarah977 @Robin4 @Francesca

@Laura2484  @Ria16 @Helen350 @Lizzie @Quincy @Laura_C@Mike-And-Helen0 @Rachel0 @Susan17 perhaps Airbnb Hosts and Guests in Kerikeri, Kawakawa and Northland in New Zealand and across the world can jump on board of this initiative involving Mullets!!

Rugby: Public to decide fate of All Black Midfielder Jack Goodhue's mullet

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12297241

Perhaps I'll start a separate topic for those who have Mullet Haircuts to come out of the closest and post their photos from days gone by as well 🙂

[Clara116]

@Branka-and-Silvia0  No, we don't struggle understanding you my dear - many happy greetings to you both, also best wishes from my dear friend  Nada in Germany to you

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

Thank you dear @Clara116  🙂

Yeah, I'm good....I understood what **bleep** means before @Ute42  did 😛

Anyone remembers the time when people didn't know what 🙂 😄 😛  means?

[Helen427]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 

What do those little symbols mean??

Some of us are a little behind still!!

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Helen427 

those are keyboard emoticons or textual portrayals of a writer's moods or facial expressions in the form of icons.  In recent times, graphical icons, both static and animated, have joined the traditional text-based emoticons; these are commonly known as emoji.

You should look at them sideways. The head is rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees. One will most commonly see the eyes on the left, followed by the nose (often not included) and then the mouth, like this  🙂

Here is a list of notable and commonly used emoticons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons

You can also use a keyboard to draw other symbols, like a heart ❤️  or a rose @-->--  or boobs (.)(.) hehe 🙂

:

[Miloud0]

Salute @Ute42, 

It is a so interesting article. Thanks for sharing 

Thanks, 

Miloud

[Sarah977]

@Ute42 @Branka-and-Silvia0 @Robin4 and others. Another thing about learning other languages is that language reflects attitudes, or maybe it's the other way around. Here in Mexico no one ever says  "Yo rompi..." (I broke...") They say "Se rompio" (It broke). No one ever takes responsibility- it's always someone or something else's fault. Like the plate just jumped off the table all by itself and shattered.

And you know what? Some of you non-native English speakers actually write English better than some native English speakers, who sometimes have terrible grammar and spelling.

[Susan17]

@Ute42 

My new favourite post ever (my previous fave was your Guantanamo thread) CC gold! Thank you for the shout-out, and for making my day! Laughed my arse off when I read it (no asterisks required for arse - mustn't be classed as an "offensive" word, by US standards 😉)

While I may have quite a few words in my English vocabulary, it is a source of great embarrassment and regret to me that I can't speak any other languages, while all the non-Irish people I know here, can speak at least 2 or 3 languages. My lovely cleaning lady Geni (and now my dear friend), could barely speak a word of English when she first started with me several years ago. She could, however, speak 3 other languages, and had a basic grasp of several others, despite never having had the privilege of even a high-school education. Geni now speaks very good English, albeit with a pure Dublin twang, and I have to admit, I always get a good chuckle out of how she expresses every frustration or annoyance now with an emphatic and heartfelt, "Oh, for f*ck's sake!!" Just like the natives... 😉

I did learn French during secondary school, many moons ago, and was reasonably good at it, but after I left school and took the boat to find work in the UK at 17, I never really had the opportunity to practice it again, so it fell by the wayside, sadly. Your post has inspired me to have a read through the French Community Centre, and to my great surprise, I found that I could understand quite a bit more than I expected to. Perhaps I'll follow your example, and try to brush up on my French that way. Who knows, by this time next year, maybe I'll be as proficient in French, as you and @Branka-and-Silvia0 are in English 😉

Once again, thank you for a wonderful post and for putting the smile firmly back on my face on an otherwise very stressful weekend. You really are a tonic, darling @Ute42! (Translation - you're a top chick: you're a ray of sunshine; you're the dog's bollox! No asterisks needed there either!)

Much love, and a very Happy Christmas to you and yours! 💚🤍🧡

[Stephanie]

@Susan17 you think I'd let arse be bleeped out? I use it daily! 

I remember in a previous role for another community, arse was bleeped out. Problem was the lads were talking about football. The Cannons lads were chatting about **bleep**nal vs Tottenham London derby. In the same community, pleb was bleeped out too, until the Brit's confirmed with the Americans it was not an extreme/super offensive word. 

Thanks

[Susan17]

@Stephanie 

Speaking of London derbies... oh wait... that's probably not a subject you'll want to discuss this evening, is it Steph? 2-0. And Chelsea too. Ouch. 😉

I don't know about pleb though..  is it not a bit naughty? I always thought that people would be highly offended to be called a pleb! But then again, I come from a land where calling someone a feckin eejit, is a term of endearment.. what would I know? 😉

[Robin4]

@Susan17 

Susan we should never let on to the world that our dogs are smarter than we are!

I had Tineke and John stay here for three weeks last year, Tineke is Dutch, and I have to tell you our dog is bilingual!

She understands 'walkies' in English and in Dutch!

Definitely smarter than your average bear!!!!

Cheers......Rob

[Susan17]

@Robin4 

They sure are, Rob - and a lot nicer oftentimes too! 😉

[Stephanie]

Leave it out @Susan17 , let's truce after the red devil's display? 

[Susan17]

@Stephanie 

Haha! I just knew  you were going to bring that up, Steph... shoulda kept my mouth shut... 😉

[Stephanie]

I'm not happy about us having your Jose castoff either @Susan17 ... Will be interesting if you guys land Poch as speculated (and annoying!)