Monday, March 22, 2010

If I Had 5000 Dong...



...for every time a random person asked me an English question, I'd be a rich man. Well, at least I'd be able to eat a lot of breakfasts in Vietnam.

Here's a typical situation: As I was leaving the gym today, a girl at the front desk showed me a piece of paper that said, "Enternal Frame." She looked at me and said, "Is this correct?" I pondered the piece of paper for a couple of seconds, looked at her quizzically and said, "Do you mean the song?" She nodded at me and smiled. I told her she was close but that it was spelled "Eternal Flame."

This is a good example of how my interpretation skills have developed over the last couple of years. I'm pretty sure if the same situation happened in 2008 I would have had no idea what the girl was talking about. There were no context clues, no music playing, nothing. Frankly, I'm turning into an English genius.