Friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers…etc.

This class was certainly an interesting one. People seemed a bit shy at first and kind of gave me looks telling me that they were not interested in talking about this topic. Well, once we got into pairs it was another story as the questions were shooting around the room like fireworks. It was very interesting for me to watch.

There were quite a few words that came up during the lesson. Some of them are:

bronchial tubes The bronchial tubes connect the trachea to the lungs.
bronchitis I have had bronchitis before, it really hurts.
bangs Charly had a new hairstyle today–she had bangs.
background Many people said that they did not care about family background.
picky If someone is picky, they are not often satisfied with choices.
convert Many people convert so as to the same religion as their spouse.
success rate A good success rate for a hitter in baseball is .300.
break up They decided that they were not happy so they broke up.
couple They are both so energetic and fun–they make a great couple.
single Some people want to stay single forever.
advice You shouldn’t give advise unless someone asks for it.
advise As your lawyer, I advise you to tell the truth.
confess He felt much better after he confessed his sins.
propose She is getting sick of waiting for him to propose.

Please do notice that the last two words are English words, but are often misused in Korea. Confess is rarely used to tell someone that you love them, and propose is almost never used to simply ask someone out. Mi-young made a good point, it is used to bring up an idea, in a meeting or something like that.

One question that was asked lot in this class was, “Do you have boyfriend/girlfriend.” We need to be careful not to forget the article here, so, “Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?” is more correct.

Also be careful of questions like, “How many boyfriends do you have?” because while grammatically correct, this question could make someone angry. I suppose that the question that was intended was, “How many boyfriends have you ever had?”

A few people talked about the importance of letting someone “know your mind.” I think I would usually say that “you need to tell him/her your feelings” or “let him/her know how you feel.”

Because today’s topic was very personal and private, occasionly we needed to escape from a question. Some useful ways of doing that are:

Sorry, that’s private.

That’s personal.

I’d rather not say.

I’d prefer not to say.

As I wrote above, I thought that everyone did a great job in the class. Some examples of conversations questions about dating that you could have asked are here. Conversation questions about friends can be found here.

Good job!

How to make friends

I hope that everyone enjoyed this topic as much as I did. I really wish that I wrote down everyone’s advice for making friends because it was very useful and interesting.

We started out the class with the question, “How do you usually make friends?”

This question started a great deal of conversation and it was very hard for me to stop some groups from continuing with just this question. Before we got started on the advice I pointed out that “making friends” is very usual English but “making a girlfriend/boyfriend” sounds like something from Frankenstein. Better would be “to get/find a girlfriend/boyfriend.”

After warming up with the question written above we started giving each other the advice hat I printed up. (I think maybe I confused some people with my directions and the phrase “word-for-word” means all the words exactly, verbatim ).

The 12 pieces of advice that I gave were:

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.

2. Smile.

3. Remember that someone’s name is to them the sweetest and most important sound in any language

4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interest.

6. Make the other person feel important–and do it sincerely.

7. Friends are like flowers.

8. Don’t expect too much from anybody. Take what they can give, and be prepared to by more generous in return.

9. Never give advice unless it is specifically asked for.

10. Never drop in unexpectedly.

11. Do not encourage your friends to tell you their troubles all the time.

12. Be unquestioningly royal loyal.

Maybe you can remember, but 6 of these were from Dale Carnegie and 6 were from Princess Beris Kandauoroff’s book, The Art of Living. The first six were from How to Win Friends and Influence People . By the way, I am sorry, I think we (including me –especially me) confused Dale Carnegie with Andrew Carnegie. Sorry about any confusion about that.

Some phrases that came up in this class and might be useful include:

first impression First impressions are very important, so you should try to smile.
maintain your relationship It is hard to maintain friendships during military service.

lose touch I have lost touch with most of my friends from high school.

zip one’s lips Do not tell anyone my secret. Zip your lips!

miser You should not be so cheap and act like a miser if you want to have friends.

Also, please don’t forget the difference in pronunciation of royal and loyal.
Here is a tongue twister for you–A loyal royal warrior will rarely worry why we rule.

Because everyone spoke for such a long time, there were mistakes of course. Some of them are here:

When I was elementary school. >>> When I was in elementary school.
When I was an elementary school student.

I very enjoyed it. >>> I enjoyed it very much.
I really enjoyed it.

My friend is angry to me. >>> My friend is angry with me.
My friend is angry with me.

Almost people have friends. >>> Almost everyone has friends.

This is difficult, I am confusing. >>> This is difficult, I am confused.
This is confusing, I don’t know what to do.
I confused the main ideas.

I hope you are not confused. See you very soon!

Thursday’s Topic

Hello guys.

How are you? I am not sure who checks this blog, or when they check it. I wanted to be sure to give you a hint about the topic for Thursday’s class. I promised Mi-young that I would at least say on Tuesday what the subject will be for Thursday. Well, today is Wednesday so I am almost right. The topic for Thursday is one that was suggested in the second class. It is “How to make friends.” One link that might be helpful for this topic is right here.  This page was not written with ESL learners in mind, so I think that it might be a little difficult, but I also think that it has lots of interesting and useful words for you. Take care and I will see you on Thursday!