Comments on: learning new English

By: Prashant saxena

Prashant saxena — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:13:32 +0000

I, Dave and Jenny, am at the other end of the stick, an Indian immigrant to the US. I have a colleague whose last name is Lund and I insist on addressing him as Dr Lund rather than Philip. This drives him up the wall, as he insists on me calling him by his first name.
Last week, after 2 years of insisting on calling him Dr Lund, I told him what it means in Hindi and how I couldn’t lose the priceless opportunity!!!
A year later I still call him Dr Lund.

By: Venusallure

Venusallure — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:57:40 +0000

I did not read through all the comments so I am sure someone must have mentioned it already.
Tell me is direct translation of hindi. In Hindi when you call on phone or in person the phrases are kind of like “aur sunao” (And relate, as in speak) and “aur batao” ( tell me). The lieteral translation. The language however requires more than that as the exact conversation in hindi would be something like
“Hello” “aur batao” “kya haal hai” –> Translation: Hello, How are you?
“Hello, aur sunao/batao, kya chal raha hai” –> Translation: Hello, how is it going?
and so forth…
but translations are done word to word (who did them first who knows but it is a norm now) by someone without the complete understanding of English.

I faced similar thngs when I first migrated to English speaking country. I had to translate everything in my head from Hindi to English. english did not come out first. So the first time I was in a heated arguement with someone and i said
“Will you listen to me talk?” and pat came response “No. I will not. This is not one way conversation. I got things to say too”
What i was translating was the hindi – “Meri ek baat sunoge” and i did literal “will you listen to me talk” (i left out ek = one as i used somewhat of my brain that it does not make sense ). Well translation should have been “Will you listen to me for a second/minute?”

So the nuances are lost in translation uless the person has mastery of both languages.

Did not mean for my comment to be a blog entry in itself.

Awesome blog btw.

By: Ram

Ram — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:03:34 +0000

@dhiv

I feel sorry for you. You sound very confused about who you are and who you want to be. You’ve obviously not been raised with the right values. Indian culture may have its faults and quirks, but you can be sure that no one who has been raised in that culture would ever say the word “f**k” when referring to their mom.

By: dhiv

dhiv — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:05:57 +0000

So I just got to say that I love your blog! I come from an Indian family but have been raised in California. So I really consider myself more American than Indian in most respects. I’m not religious, I don’t speak the language that well, I can’t cook Indian food but can easily make Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings, my favorite holiday is Christmas and not Diwali, I don’t hang out with very many Indian people and those that I do hang out with are pretty “white-washed” just like me. I stumbled upon this blog and it actually brings to light a lot of things that I thought was weird about my own parents or about the culture. I didn’t really understand some of it until reading about your experiences. And I think its hilarious!! My mom always answers the phone in a really loud voice, “yah, tell me.” I was like what the f***? I never really got it. I never really get why Indian people have to talk to each other so loud either. I was rolling around on the floor reading this!

By: PoonaWali

PoonaWali — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:20:54 +0000

Prav,Why do you read their blogs if you don’t enjoy them ?
And who do you think you’re fooling when you say “we dun do that when we get to the other poor countries ” ?
We do it to everyone, everywhere, all the time.

By: prav

prav — Sat, 28 May 2011 04:51:00 +0000

I hear a lot of cribbing from the expats , if u dun like it , and find it bizzare why do u guys live here ? For some reason expats who come to India have the balls to tell Indians that their country is weird and their people funny . We dun do that when we get to the other poor countries

By: PoonaWali

PoonaWali — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 01:55:24 +0000

Love your blog …I tell you !
My morning has started out so well, I tell you.

By: Amit K

Amit K — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 08:20:45 +0000

Hahahahah!!!!

its really hilarious.
Hello?
Hello?
Tell me….
But things are a bit different with me. If I call or receive a call from person I know I always start with” How r u”/ but tell me/haan bol (hindi) is really common and really it does not sound rude in Hindi or with a different tone in English

By: Richa

Richa — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:07:50 +0000

Hahaa… I laughed through every word of this post and almost all the comments too. Changed my status on Gtalk to ‘lol’ too. I just cannot stop laughing.

By: One Way Bombay

One Way Bombay — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:03:04 +0000

[...] end of the line speaks English and can understand my version of English. I’m reassured to read that the hello cycle is apparently business as usual in India (and [...]