Question about speaking English

[Gary D]

My nieces are shy around me and hesitant to speak english, that will change over the next 10 months as I will be living with them fulltime and they will have to get used to me.

[fillipino_wannabe]

I can't have a proper conversation with most people, even if they speak good English they don't understand my accent and I'm only from Bournemouth, not like I've got a Glaswegian accent lol.

[Beetlejuice]

I’m so glad that people speak a very high level of English where I am.  During winters, I vacation in the Philippines and I seldom find any locals that I can have a deep conversation with.

[Mike J]

48 minutes ago, Beetlejuice said:

I’m so glad that people speak a very high level of English where I am.  During winters, I vacation in the Philippines and I seldom find any locals that I can have a deep conversation with.

Getting kind of deep already. 

[Old55]

54 minutes ago, Beetlejuice said:

I’m so glad that people speak a very high level of English where I am.  During winters, I vacation in the Philippines and I seldom find any locals that I can have a deep conversation with.

Could be because of who you spend vacation time with in Philippines?

[GeoffH]

1 hour ago, Beetlejuice said:

I seldom find any locals that I can have a deep conversation with.

Some of the family members only have basic English and it's difficult to converse with them but several have very good English and some have excellent English. eg one is a secondary teacher and another is a journalist and both have great English and are very intelligent people with whom it is possible to have long and detailed conversations. 

Sister - department store worker, brother - insurance worker, father taxi driver, aunt journalist, cousins - secondary school teacher,  university students and various other jobs.  Some of the family are from more rural areas and they tend to have more basic English but there always seems to be someone there at family gatherings talking English.

Edited July 17, 2019 by GeoffH

[Nickleback99]

On 7/13/2019 at 4:35 AM, Gary D said:

My nieces are shy around me and hesitant to speak english, that will change over the next 10 months as I will be living with them fulltime and they will have to get used to me.

Gonna be same here as 2 of ours will be living with us and although I hope to learn as much as I can, out plan for them is to go to better schools and from my inquiries so far, those schools teach classes using English only.  Living up on Caloocan now around Fairview, they don't get a lot of English.  We know a good teacher there we are thinking of hiring to tutor them in meantime to get them better up to speed before we arrive.  Asawa said she's going to force them to speak English in house to further that along as well, which hers too was pretty much via immersion before, and amazing how quickly she learned. 

[Beetlejuice]

18 hours ago, Old55 said:

Could be because of who you spend vacation time with in Philippines?

Maybe it is?  I tend to stay in places that are not full of foreigners, since the prices are much lower in places such as Tingloy, and I also like to get a taste of the more authentic filipino life. 

[Beetlejuice]

I starting thinking about so many English expressions, such as "setting sail,'' which is used more often than not for ships that no longer have sails, but I just learned that there are so many  other expressions that have origins with sailing.

“A clean bill of health”
According to dictionary.com this phrase derives from the days when the crew of ocean going ships might be a little less than hygienic, so they needed to present a certificate, carried by a ship, attesting to the presence or absence of infectious diseases among the ship’s crew and at the port from which it has come.

“Feeling Blue”
How often do you hear people talking about feeling blue or have the blues? An entire genre of music comes from this phrase. Who knew that came from the world of sailing? See-the-sea.org explains the popular phrase comes from a custom that was practiced when a ship lost its captain during a voyage. The ship would fly blue flags and have a blue band painted along her hull when she returned to port.

“Pipe down”
Parents have been screaming “pipe down” to their kids forever, but where does that actually come from? Apparently, Pipe Down was the last signal from the Bosun’s pipe each day, which meant lights-out, quiet down, time to go to bed.

“Over a barrel”
We all know when someone has you “over a barrel” things aren’t going well. This saying is used all the time these days to indicate being severely compromised, but it began in the most literal way. Sailor crew would sometimes be punished for their misgivings and that involved being tied over a cannon barrel and whipped. It’s no wonder that one stuck around. Yikes.

“Toe the line”
Perhaps you’ve been at work and your boss has scowled at you and said, “toe the line, or you’re gone”. If this has happened to you, we are sorry, that sounds like a horrible work environment. But, if you were wondering about the origins of his demand, it’s an old naval expression that refers to a ship’s crew who would be called to gather and form a line with their toes all touching a given seam (or line) of the deck planking.

“By and Large”
Folks say this one all the time to refer to the big picture. “By and large, ASA is the most awesome organization in existence”… something like that. This term got started on a sailboat with the word “by” meaning into the wind and “large” meaning off the wind. So sailors would say: “By and large this ship handles quite nicely.”

“Loose cannon”
Everyone has known a few people who are loose cannons – unpredictable and dangerous on some level. Not surprisingly the term comes from when a ship’s cannon would come loose from it’s lashing. The big dangerous thing would be sliding all over the place making for some uncomfortable time on deck trying to get that bad boy back in its spot.

“A square meal”
People often talk about getting three “square meals” a day…what the hell is a square meal? It’s actually quite simple – the wooden plates back in the days of tall ships were square.

“Hand over fist”
These days this phrase usually refers to making a bunch of money, although it can refer to anything happening fast and in abundance. It comes from a more literal origin – sailors would be tugging at lines as fast as they could, hand over fist, to trim sheets and raise sails.

“Son of a gun”
It’s amazing that this phrase has lasted so long. Back in the day, as you might imagine, sailors were often less than virtuous and every once in a while a “lady friend” of a crewman might give birth to a child on the ship. A good spot for this sort of thing was between the guns on the gun deck. Now let’s say this little rascal isn’t claimed by any of the aforementioned sleazy sailors, this little grommet would sometimes be called a “son of a gun”.

[Arizona Kid]

On 7/13/2019 at 7:35 PM, Gary D said:

My nieces are shy around me and hesitant to speak english, that will change over the next 10 months as I will be living with them fulltime and they will have to get used to me.

Be gentle.