Tuesday, 6 May 2008

I'll have an "L" for Labbit Please

Lets think for a moment about the words 'fat' and 'father'.  Apart from the amusing inference that there you cant have father without fat, there is also a difference between the sound of the 'fa' in father and the 'fa' in fat.   Imagine that the to make it clearer we decided to make two letters, an 'a' for fat and an 'á' for fáther.  Suddenly things get a lot more complicáted and you have to listen to that vowel á lot more cárefully.  Maybe you will not notice the subtle changes in the letter, and not be able to spell the words with the new letter.

This is how the Korean kids feel learning English.  They have never had to differentiate between tongue half way up (r) and tongue all the way up (L) so they can't even hear the difference let alone reproduce it.   That's why when I was asking for words that start with 'L' they cried passionately "Lion" ,"Lamp" and "Labbit"!.

 

Korean fashion is a mixed thing with some interesting and even innovative styles in some stores and some half assed attempts in others.  The quarter assed attempts are the best though like the nice disco t-shirt for women in stylish white fitted sides and a low cut collar and the words "HONEY COCK" in bold gold lettering on the front.  I have never seen a shirt that screams 'ladyboy' quite like it.  There is also the pink babygirl t with "I'm with my girlfriend"  on the front which is nice but I don't think they will sell too many in conservative Korea.  I can't get all high and mighty about English though because a trip to the American supermarket soon has me laughing with the same kind of accidental innuendo, although a little less brazen.  For example,  if you are after pet food you can go past a pack of Tuffy's Moist burger, found next to the bone-a-mints.

Korea now gets tim-tams.   It is nice to be in a country where you can get stuff from home, for example you can go to Outback steakhouse and get a fourex and a steak or maybe a Jug of Draft fosters.  Costs 3 times more than eating Korean food but it is nice for a treat. 

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