Random memories

The American English

It has been over 25 years since my husband and I moved to the Unites States of America and it has definitely been an adventure. Over these years we have moved to several states and have made a number of friends; some of them have turned out to be best friends.

Today, I am going to share with all of you a couple of funny incidences we have encountered. Since my husband and I grew up in India, we speak the, "British English" but our kids speak the American way. I remember that particular day when we were in Michigan.

My husband, one afternoon was upset with Sabari, our older child, and called him "PAATHETIC" in the typical Tamil way. He was angry, mind you. My son, Sabari, standing really close to his dad, when the man was freaking out, very calmly corrected him saying: "Appa you do not pronounce it that way. You say Pathetic, like "pa-the-tic". I grabbed my son and ran, afraid of the consequences.

We have had several such occasions where pronunciation has been a big issue. Once at work, we were having a discussion about Europe and the people there and I mentioned Europeans and my colleagues burst out laughing and gave me lesson on pronouncing it the right way, I mean the American way, with the stress on the "peans" instead of "Euro" (the currency).

On a snowy day, I told my colleague,  that I was going to drive home with my "Hazaard" light on and she sat me down and said that it was not "Hazaard "but "Haazard". The funny thing here was that the colleague that gave me lessons on American English was Russian, and believe me, had problems of her own. Her "th" sounded like "zh".

I, finally, have also learnt to say percent the American way, "Per-Cent", with the focus on "cent" instead of "per".

In spite of living in this country all these years I still say Can't instead of "can-t"(like a can of soup) .  I am confused between the American "come" and "go".  It bothers me when I hear people say, "Do you want to go with me?" Instead of "Do you want to come with me?" and "no fair" instead of "not fair".

I have come a long way in learning the American English and thoroughly enjoy when I hear my sons trying to teach my mom, their American English. My younger son thinks she actually speaks English in Tamil. The most difficult language for parents, in general, is to understand the most recent language spoken by their teenager. Yes they have a language of their own and it is called MUMBLING.

Brinda Subramanian