11. září 2008 v 3:51 | Martin
Hi,
This article is about my English. I have been studying English for 6 years (or I think so) but I have learned most of my English in past two years. English what is taught at Czech schools is good, but since I started to listen to bbc and audiobooks, my English has improved more than ever before. I know it is definitely not perfect now and specially when I write I do many mistakes, but I understand almost everything and I am able to speak pretty good. The camp I was at helped me a lot. The first few days were bad. I was able to say things in my head, but once I started saying them aloud, I was so focused on my voice that I lost the point after few words and had to improvised, what was even worse. But once I got used to my voice it became easy to talk better and what more, it stopped being necessary to translate everything from Czech to English. I was thinking about how you find out you do not translate anymore. It is easy: when someone tell you there was a green tree, you just imagine tree. Not first "strom" and then picture, but you can see it in your head right then.
One thing I was always curious about is how it is to think in different language. Every time I met somebody who could speak two languages perfectly, I asked him in which he was thinking when he was alone. Some guys told me they were not thinking at all and at some cases I even believed them :). Now I can finally say how it is. I do not think in English all the time and especially when I start to think back about stuff I remember from Czech I think in Czech, but there are moments I think in English completely. It happens at school or when I am out with my family and it is interesting to watch how I am thinking in English afterwards in my head. Finally it always turns back to Czech again, but it is going better and better and it is pleasant feeling. But there is one think I wonder about - I cant speak English so well, so when I start to think in English, am I going more stupid? My thoughts cannot be too deep unless I want to switch to Czech, so maybe yes. Btw I have just finished listening to the book "1984" by George Orwell. And in this book they do something similar - they transfer English to the "New speak". It means government deletes many words like love, laughter, freedom and so on and they force people to use it and write it. And when finally there is no word for peace because nobody remembers, how can people say they wanted peace? I will have to think about it, but I do not know if in English or Czech :) :)
However, there are still two things I have difficulty with. First is talking on phone and second is understanding jokes. Talking of phone is getting better and it depends on phone too, but jokes are real problem. It often happens that I listen to somebody so carefully in order to understand everything (I do not like to ask "what" after every word) that I have no time to think about the meaning. I usually notice something is wrong, but I always think I had to miss something. Then there is usually silence, I am thinking hard and people are staring at me. But it is always fun at the end, when they see my expression :) I told them to tell me "Martin, joke is coming, prepare yourself" before they start and that makes people laugh a lot. Fortunately I do not have this problem anymore, because I am at high school now. Most of the jokes contain words like "bitch, fuck, shit,.." so that helps me to realize what is going on.
The school is getting harder and I have almost no time left. After school I go play badminton and we have matches against other school almost twice a week (so far we have always lost :), then I do my homeworks and then I go to bed. Therefore I cant be on icq or Skype almost at all and my blog will be silent for a longer time.
And when speaking about my blog - there is several things I obviously have to write here. When I decided I would write a blog, it was because of two reasons: First is to let my family (and friends who are interested) know what is going on here and what I am doing. The second and main reason why I write this is me. I do not want to write diary, but I want to have my memories and thoughts written down, so I will be able to read them over when I return back to the Czech. I had no idea that month in the North Carolina would be so full of funny things to write about. And I had no idea that my blog would become so popular as it has and that there would be people reading it who I do not even know. And now when things has stopped to be so funny and when the rest of the fun is gone because of my English, people are complaining and telling me to start write in Czech again. I am honored there are people who read this blog and everybody is welcome here, but I have to repeat again that I write it mainly because of me. And I am sorry I cannot be funny in English, but that is the reason why I have come to the U.S.
So I will continue to write in English about boring stuff and I will probably lose most of the readers, but please do not write it to me. Those who want to read it still and comment it or help with my English are welcome, but those who want me to write about things "co maji stavu" are not. Thank you everyone who has read it all, I just like writing so much :)
Bye
Martin
Well, altough they're not so funny as they was in begining, I still like to read your articles ;-). Sentence I really laughted at was "Most of the jokes contain words like "bitch, fuck, shit,.." so that helps me to realize what is going on." Great! :-) I'm waiting for new article (and I'll be patient). By and have a good days in America!