I could totally do it! Seriously, i’m Weirdly good at pronouncing foreign words
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Lol here’s a true story. A decade ago I was engaged to do a small project with a Scottish firm. They assigned this really, really old guy to give my guys instructions. They called me up and said they couldn’t communicate with him. These were mostly Chinese educated guys who don’t speak much English and they aren’t used to Western English accents so it’s happened before when I worked with Brits and Australians.
So I went down on site to speak to him personally. I couldn’t understand a SINGLE word he was saying lol. I mean, seriously, not one word. And I can watch Trainspotting without subtitles. I had to awkwardly call his manager and try to explain the situation without being offensive. The dude just laughed and said they don’t understand half of what he’s saying either but the guy who was supposed to manage the project on their side was on sick leave.
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I had an old Japanese man, as an independent consultant and a Scottish mechanical engineer. Those fuckers could not communicate. Imagine a table of 14-20 people and I’m in the middle translating DDC control information from fucking Japanese-accent-English to a Scottish lad and back.
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Lol I know exactly what you’re saying. I have a long running side investment dealing with mostly Japanese clients and most of the employees are Japanese. I gave up trying to communicate with the clients in English and went to pick up basic Japanese.
Lest this be construed as racist, this is how Chinese people(the ones in China. Like Japanese, they study all subjects in school in their native languages) pronounce English words, which is similar to how Japanese do it.
When you have a name, say Michael Jackson, the syllables are broken up and a close sounding word in the native language is assigned to each one.
So Michael Jackson becomes:
mai ke le jie ke shen
Because Michael ends up an “l” and Jack ends with a “k”, the words “le” and “ke” are added respectively.
So it’s pretty hard to understand if you don’t know the native language.
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Seconded.
Similar to how Coca Cola becomes 可口可乐。(ke kou ke le) and McDonald’s is 麦当劳. (Mai dang lao).
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Haha, yeah, there are parts of Scotland where even other Scottish people can’t understand the accent.
For such a small country we’ve a huge variation in accent and dialect.
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If you say “space ghetto” in a heavy Scottish accent it sounds like “spice girl”.
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Ehhhh gonna have to disagree with you on that one, mate…
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Get a heavier accent.
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That might be why my pap was a man of so few words. He just gave up!
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I got a full ride to Lewis University!!
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Has anyone on here heard of quantum computing?
I’ve heard of it in the sense that I’ve seen the words used to describe something.
Last thing I read about it was that quantum computing was used to prove the possibility of an electron traveling backwards in time.
Really just big shiny words to me. I have no idea what that stuff actually entails.
And another thing was that they used one to measure movement at faster than the speed of light.
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Despite getting that full tuition to Lewis University, I will be attending University of Illinois at Chicago in the fall.
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Turns out I have not one but two herniated discs at L4-L5 and L5-S1. Exactly like my father and my grandma.
It amuses me even before I had all this that I actually had a prayer of playing any serious basketball beyond high school, lol.
I’ve been getting morphine on the low from my uncle which helps with pain temporarily, but as of yet I have been unable to even make it through a round as a caddie. Next up is epidural steroid injections. Who knows what lies beyond. The way things are looking I may not be able to go to New York with my family because of the length of the trip.
I’ve also come down with a shitty flu that put me out of commission for about two weeks. Be careful out here guys.
Good news though. I graduated high school. Mayor Lightfoot was at our graduation. I feel slightly slighted though because they didn’t give me recognition as a Chinese scholar during the ceremony, rather another student who I’m for sure better than. It’s all over though and a thing of the past, but I’ll show them something. I’m also going to learn Russian. UIC has a summer STEM program which I got into. This is one step in helping me get a full ride scholarship so I can actually live on campus. I did good on all my placement tests and everything.
Not to sound too cliche, but do you guys ever get jealous of your peers? I been feeling kind of bummed lately because I’m looking at my peers, and one of them from my city who used to play basketball for a famous high school in my city. He got drafted for the Lakers recently. I look around and see the lead point guard at my school three down his first dunk, I’m still stagnant. The thing is that in reality it’s not that serious but it kind of goes down bitter considering the fact that I spent so much time on pointless things thinking it would really make a difference.
One thing is for certain, I will have my chance to shine, even if no one sees. The sun rises every day and no one really cares.
Remember, you, and everyone around you, are some of the luckiest 0.0000001% of humans to ever walk this earth. The opportunities for you are so far beyond imagining to the vast majority of people who have ever lived it would be hard to describe. But sure, focus on the tiny fraction of a percentage that will make you unhappy if you want.
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You’re right. I notice your profile pic. 改善means to improve. Do you happen to speak Mandarin?
Unfortunately not, no. I Googled Kai Zen because that fitted well with my philosophy at the time, and that’s what came up. Honestly, it could just as easily have said big red tractors and I’d have been none the wiser.
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Lol, big red tractors. Rest assured though, the meaning of those characters pertain to a mindset we all should adopt.
You’re right about what you said though. I need to humble myself.
Probably more insightful than I intended it to be. I was more pointing to the positives. Most of us take the multitude of positives in our life for granted until they aren’t there.
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