Speaking English to People Who Don’t

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If you travel around, you will often find yourself speaking English to people who don’t speak it very well. There’s a certain art to communicating ideas effectively in this environment that nobody I’ve ever met does as good (sic) as I do. I’ve grown up around people who are terrible English speakers. I’ve befriended them, learned from them, taught them, and worked with them. I know how to speak Broken English to these people.

• Step 1: Find Common Ground

If the person speaks a Romance (Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese) language fluently, you will be able to communicate with Western Body Language (the only body language you know) and common words that haven’t changed much from their original Latin. Words that end in -ant, -ate, -ous, and -ent (I don’t remember what declensions those are) fit this bill more often than not. Examples: apartment, complicate, populous, infiltrate, exodus, expectant… I mean, the list goes on forever. Don’t expect to use Germanic words and be understood regardless of how “simple” they are. You’re better off using “less simple” words with Latin roots.

It’s astonishing how often people will use shorter words in favor of longer, more common words with the thought that the shorter words are simpler for the listener to understand.

If the person speaks a Germanic (German, Norse, Swedish, Danish, Dutch) language, they will most likely speak English. However, if they speak a distant Indo-European language (Greek, Russian, Hindi) you will still be able to find common ground with a little more effort on your part. If you learn some basic nouns (20 can be enough) in their language you can have a meaningful conversation by filling in the blanks with some well-chosen English, which they will know at least some of. This leads me to my next point.

• Step 2: Don’t Speak Complete Sentences

This is, by far, the biggest mistake people make. The beauty of English is that you can put a few nouns together with a verb (wrongly conjugated is fine, go with the 3rd person when in doubt) and communicate a thought. I think an example here will tell it best.

Bad: So, what’s your favorite kind of alcohol?

Good: You drink (make drinking gesture with hand), what is drink you drink for happy? You happy drink… Vodka?

Note that the good version repeats the subject of the question (drink) 5 times including the gesture. Also, it uses two words that are almost universally known: ‘happy’ and ‘vodka’.

If the person knew very, very little English, you could learn their word for ‘you’ and ‘good’ (replace ‘happy’ with ‘good’) and get your idea across with the gesture very easily.

• Step 3: Draw Pictures

Uh, no shit Sherlock.

Appendix:

If we’re going to talk about hitting on foreign girls, it needs to be said that the basics still remain the same. Don’t reveal any information about yourself, especially your nationality. Make her earn the knowledge of your nationality. Ask her a bunch of questions and let her talk. You might understand 10% of what she says, but it doesn’t fucking matter. I learned how little I have to listen to girls by being put in a situation where I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Just sit there with a confident smile on your face and check out the other girls around the bar. Don’t ask for any clarifications.

Going overseas to pick up girls is like a NFL quarterback going to the Pro-Bowl. All of a sudden there are no blitzes, all your receivers are wide open, and you come out in the middle of the second quarter to hit on the Hawaiian cheerleaders.

Satisfaction

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“The meaning of life is achieving satisfaction.” – DC Hero

I define satisfaction as fulfilling a want or a need. The lowest times in life (depression, boredom, etc.) are times of no satisfaction. In either case, you either have nothing you want/need or you can’t get what you want/need. It’s very simple. Whenever ever I spend time or money on something and I need to evaluate if it was worth my effort, the one way I can measure it is by measuring the raw satisfaction gained from the aforementioned activity, which is exactly related to how much I wanted/needed what I got. I’ll do the math for you. Banging Hot Thai Girl = McGriddle On Hangover.

“Freedom From Want” – FDR

Of course, being free from wants is what many people, and many smart people, try to do. And I’ve done that over the past year. I’m free from wanting my three core wants: gambling, money, and Asian girls. But, hm. A life without wants is a life without satisfaction since ‘needs’ are mostly wants combined with lies. So I mean, there’s still the pleasures and happiness of life, but what’s life without satisfaction?  It’s the slow death of retirement, and damn that shit to Hell on a houseboat.

This is why I’ll be spending the remainder of the Year coming up with a new want for 2009. Because freedom from wants wasn’t satisfying. This gives me a new purpose in life, and I suddenly realize that I had a want the entire time: I wanted to find another want. I’m sure finding it will prove to be very satisfying.

So what is this about? Oh yeah, I think people associate happiness with “the meaning of life” when that association is nothing more than a scam cooked up by Disney to sell more Lion King DVDs. Hakuna Matata my ass. When you think about the meaning of happiness and the meaning of satisfaction, it’s clear what the difference is and why you want a lot more of the latter.

No Asians 2008 – Update

I caught up with Will today to talk about his No Asians 2008 progress. I’ll paraphrase what he had to say.

“It’s tougher than I ever thought it would be. I see opportunities everywhere, everyone calls me ‘retarded’ when I tell them about the pledge, and in my weaker moments I almost agree with them. But I’ve come this far, and I have to press on. It’s getting hard. I can deal with Asian girls approaching me or grabbing me on dance floors, but not much more than that. And what the hell? The Playboy Playmate of the Month for November 2008 is Korean?!?! The centerfold is reserved for White girls and, on occasion, White-looking Black girls. It’s too dangerous to the populous to put an Asian girl in that spot.

…

“I was sitting in the den, minding my business, when I saw her out of the corner of my eye. I knew it was trouble. I didn’t have to check her out to know she was beautiful because I could gauge it from the voice inflections of the guy who first started talking to her. I could see the 6-second glances she took at me to try to pry my attention, but I held onto a solemn ignorance about it even if it was prolonging the inevitable. Do you ever see a girl, just see her, and start hearing music in the background? You’re done when that happens. I couldn’t, and didn’t, look.

“My plan backfired when I saw her getting dressed in my room (it was a mixed dorm) two hours later as I was waking up from a nap. I initially avoided direct conversation, choosing a more indirect means. Eventually I led on that she had earned my full attention, which turned the sexual tension between us from medium to piping hot. At this point we talked directly for 2 minutes about things that were less important for their content than they were for their comfort.

“When she left for Paris I felt more foolish than I had in several years, maybe more than that. My hands were literally trembling. Everything I knew about women told me to hold on to my stoicism at all costs, but everything I knew about life told me it was foolish not to indulge because it might not happen again. I thought I’d lost my mind until I saw a tear fall out of her eye as she looked at me over her right shoulder. I immediately looked at the floor when she left my sight to stay in that moment for as long as possible.

“A Finnish guy came into the room as she was leaving, which would have been mildly awkward if he didn’t back-glance to check her out as she walked away. This led to the following exchange between us in heavily broken English:

“So… this girl, you sleep with her together?”

I chuckle and keep looking at the floor.

“I tell you… I know I, uh, wouldn’t mind”

He paused for a second to assess. Then he flurried around in his backpack until he found a leather-coated flask. He handed it to me saying “trust me, this you need” and I took several swigs of what tasted like Vodka mixed with Ouzo. We spent a solid 5 minutes talking about asses before heading to a bar down the street. I forgot about her as the minutes dripped by, which filled me with bursts of shame that came and went. Then she faded into the past like the other girls I used to think about. They call that being “over it” I think.

The Best Interracial Couples

With election season at hand and both sides telling us how bad America is, it’s time to look at something America kicks the rest of the world’s ass at: interracial dating. Of course, mixed-race superiority (Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, and half-Asian girls worldwide) is becoming more and more apparent and, unsurprisingly, interracial marriages are becoming more and more common (~5% of American marriages in the 2000 Census). Eventually, these two factors will lead to a worldwide mixing of races that will make the lines between them greyer and greyer until they are all more or less indistinguishable from one other. We can only stab a guess as to when this will happen. What we can do is celebrate the classic interracial couple parings that will sadly fade over the coming Millenia. I will rank the top 5 pairings in an order I will reveal at the end:

5. Black man and slightly overweight White woman

This is probably the stereotype of stereotypes for interracial dating. I predict that America’s obesity epidemic will peak at the same exact moment Mulatto conception peaks. After that peak, this pairing will disappear into the yearbooks of yesteryear.

4. Nerdish White man and slightly flat chested Asian woman

The portrayal of girls in Anime comics/movies/video-games sinlessly describes the perfect woman for this growing segment of men. A combination of not speaking English, looking 14 years old, and being the most unintimidating human beings in the world provide the perfect aphrodisiac for nerds. I keep staring at this picture because it’s so damn perfect. Her Asian excitement is tempered by his somewhat creepy and Nerdy relief, which is combined with just the right amount of clinginess. Truly a match made in heaven.

3. Demanding Arab man and submissive White woman

A relative newcomer to the party, this fast-growing phenomenon is growing as some women realize that they don’t want to be the head of the household and, instead, would like to be dominated. I wouldn’t have taken this seriously if I didn’t read about it in a dating forum (I can’t find the link!) and hear about it colloquially. Keep an eye on this one.

2. Redhead man/woman and Nobody

Contrary to urban legend, red hair isn’t going to be vanished from humanity any time soon. Those recessive genes have the awful habit of hiding themselves in people. But we can all agree, if you have red heads at the top of your list, you’re truly a sick fuck.

1. Cougars and young Latino men

I think the whole “pool boy banging the right housewife” stereotype is just a rationalization of Cougar-lust for the relentless Latino Heat. And let’s be honest here, the whole ‘Eva Longoria banging the gardener to cheat on her Latino husband’ plot on Desperate Housewives was nothing more than a clever way to reshape the reality of the legend. It’s obvious that Eva should be a wealthy, retired White model banging her Latino gardener. If girls out there already knew this, please let me know.

Oh, and the order from 1-5 goes: 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Thanks for playing.

My To-Do List

My List:

1. (name omitted)
2. Party in Mediterranean Europe

When I was in High School I came up with a list of things I wanted to accomplish before I was 30. By the time I was 24, I had accomplished all of those things outside of banging (different name omitted). I equate accomplishing everything I want to accomplish with having everything in the World because, if you think about it logically, there’s no difference in satisfaction between the two, there’s only a difference in effort. After I accomplished all of those things, I came up with the new list that you see above. If you’re wondering why #1 is even on there because you think it’s beta, then you’re probably not a man because every man should have 1 girl’s name at the top of his to-do list regardless of the quality or quantity of the ass he’s currently receiving. It keeps you focused.

Anyway, I started on #2 the other day when I told my boss I’d be going on an extended vacation of unknown length starting in September. Since my job offers time off of up to 3 months while still retaining benefits, it’s going to be anywhere from 1 to 3 months, but I’m leaning towards 1 month because I think I’ll be bored if I stay any longer than that. I went to Europe with a female companion (seemed like a great idea, ended up being a BIG mistake) for 3 weeks a few years ago and that was more than enough time. Incidentally, I hate that bitch. Unless you’re reading this and in that case… well, let’s just move on.

I’m going to start in Istanbul, which is supposed to be a pretty fun town, before going to the Greek Isles, Croatia, Sicily, Tunisia, and the South of France. I know locals in Athens and Palermo, so that should help. I hear there are lots of moisties in the Greek Isles, so that should help even more. And I’m going to get a cliched Lonely Planet book to give me a fallback plan in each city where my wandering and curiosity fail me. I’m also going to get one of those small little Netbooks to carry around with me so I can make plans on the fly.

Oh yeah, let me state the goals for this trip:

1. Bang a Turkish girl (preferably one who is somewhat attractive)
2. Don’t get sick
3. Strategically avoid Asian girls for month 9 of 12 of Will’s No Asians 2008 adventure (I forgot to mention Will will be traveling with me on this journey)

Bakku-Shan

Bakku-shan is a word I read in The Meaning of Tingo that means “a woman who seems pretty when seen from behind, but not from the front.” The word is Japanese, which is hardly surprising because an abnormally high rate of bakku-shan occurs in Asian girls (90%). Remember, ‘doggy-style’ and ‘Asian-style’ are synonyms. These girls always have beautiful long hair. You can read on how I think girls should have short hair and note the small feminist revolution in the comment section.

Girls who are 14 years old are also a big source of bakku-shan. The fact that 14 year old girls and Asian girls have something in common is NOT a coincidence. Everyone knows the feeling of checking out a girl only to find out that she’s a moistie cadet. After that you get a light feeling in your stomach and a sour taste in your mouth before you just accept it and put the smirk back on your face where it belongs. You’re damn right.

So what is the opposite of bakku-shan? What should we call girls who seem pretty from the front but not from behind? Well, their characteristics are: short hair, no ass, no side-curves… I don’t know, pretty Plain Jane. Oh yeah, that’s what models look like. Let’s just call them models.