my bad engrish

I would like to be the second (Matt was the first) to announce to you the launch of theballadofvickiandjake.com website which is about, well, "the ballad of vicki and jake". If I were to tell you any more than that, it would be defeating the purpose of having the website.

=============================================

The other day, my brother in law pointed out my declining English ability. I admit he was not the first one to point this out, either. This July I will have lived outside the US for six years. Granted, a year and a bit of that was in the UK (when I was filming "the ballad", but even that was in international housing). The rest of the time I have been in Japan.

In the beginning, the Japanese I was learning simply replaced the French that I had learned while at school. I wasn't fluent, but I could check my coat, order a beer and request a lapdance at eighteen*. I'll end this story here.

This system of Japanese in, French out failed when the French became exhausted, and then the Japanese began to battle it out with the English. Insert favourite distasteful war joke here.

This English bye-bye trend is hastened by several factors. Among them:

1. Entire days of not speaking English.

2. Becoming accustomed to the mistakes that non-native speakers of English make, so much so that the incorrect grammar begins to make sense and actually sound right.

3. Intentionally using bad grammar with non-native speakers of English because the point will get across easier and the correct grammar is too difficult for the listener. This, of course, has two added disadvantages: a) reinforcing the bad grammar in the listener and b) reinforcing the bad grammar in the alledgedly native speaker.

How do they do it, those people who speak six languages? I start to learn one and all hell breaks loose.

Three posts down.

*This age is significant as it is the legal drinking age in Quebec, compared to the 21 in upstate New York (on the Canadian border) where I lived.