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About Me
Location
Banda Aceh, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam
Birthday:
August 21
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Comments
Welcome. I am glad to see you on English Club. Mark is back from Indonesia and he was so impressed with the Indonesian people and specifically Save the Children. He was especially impressed with you and was so thankful to have your services as an interpreter. But he was especially impressed with your kindess and considers you a friend.
I had to laugh when he told me about a certain situation where he and Jim were using American humor and you said you did not truly understand it. I think it was about spanking children, which neither of them would do. I agree that our American humor is very strange at times because in our culture saying the opposite of what is good and correct is very prevalent in our humor. It is called irony or sarcasm. We find it quite humorous to say the opposite of what we actually believe or hold as a high value. But everyone knows we are saying the opposite. But the hard part for someone not of our culture is determining when we are serious or when we are being humorous.
I have to explain this to my students in my classes since they are all immigrants and have to live in the midst of American humor. It is not meant to be cruel or offensive, because we all know we do not believe what we are saying.
I hope they did not offend you in their use of American humor.
For example, if someone says they really do not like eating duck feet, which in our country very few people do. Another person will say, "Oh I love duck feet. I eat a dozen duck feet every day." This is not true.
The first person will now say, "Good, I will give you a whole flock of ducks so you can eat duck feet all the time." Once again, this is not true.
That is Americana humor. It is the opposite. Because in our country very few people eat duck feet. Crazy humor? Yes. Who can explain culture? But I try to teach my students about this kind of humor so they are not insulted when Americans do it. In fact we usually do this kind of humor with people we like. This is irony. If we do this with a person we do not like, it is usually called sarcasm. Then it is meant to be negative.
I hope you find some friends on English club to share the challenges of learning English. You have my email, so feel free to contact me if you want to have me correct your writings. I do this with a lot of English learners on this site. Or you can contact me through English club comments or messages. Ask me any questions about English. I also love this language and like to share my knowledge about it.