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Since I came to America people have been giving me advice on how I should learn English: watch TV, listen to the radio, read papers, talk to people... An advice is an advice and because I had nothing to lose I took it to the bottom of my heart. But well, it is easy to say - listen, watch, read, talk, what I of course was able to do but only in my native language. A few English words that I knew and which I could put together making some kind of sentence from them, allowed me to express myself in the easiest of the easiest ways but it didn't make an orator of me. In various situations I behaved like a duffer, waving hands, stammering, looking with filmy eyes at my interlocutor and pretending that everything was clear to me.
Once, tempted by a pleasantly irritating nostrils aroma , I entered a small bakery shop in Brooklyn. There were four tables on one side of the room opposite the counter, occupied by the amateurs of cookies, cakes and coffee. Coming closer to the one of the tables I asked a young woman who was reading a book,
"May I sit here?" She looked up and said,
"Go ahead," and returned to her book. I felt ill at ease.
Her Go ahead sounded to me like Go to hell! Although I understood the meaning of those two words I didn't exactly know what she meant by putting them together. Noticing my irresolution she looked up again and said,
"Take a seat." Well, now i was completely confused. First she wanted me to go to hell and now she wants me to take a seat with me. What would I do with the seat in hell?
"Excuse me, but I am learning English and I don't understand what you have said. May I... " this time I pointed to a chair.
"Of course," she smiled to me. "Sit down. I am sorry, I have used an idiom and that's probably why you didn't understand."
That short episode gave me a lot to think about how much I have to learn. It wasn't enough just to watch, read and listen. I had to be in the middle of an event when the strange sounding expression was used and then, after familiarizing it, I should use it in another circumstance.
On a rainy day I don't only get soaked but I hear that cats and dogs are falling down from the cloudy sky. "It's raining cats and dogs!" one says. Well, I see these domestic quadrupeds running to find a cozy and dry shelter but I don't see any of them flying in the air. Besides, if it is really raining cats and dogs, how strong of an umbrella does one have to have to sustain such a bombardment?
Sipping coffee with my friends after a copious meal at the restaurant I hear a proposition, "Fellows! We'll go Dutch!" Raising my eyebrows with a surprise I ask, "Why do you want to go to Netherlands?" "Are you pulling my leg?" I hear. "I don't even have enough money to pay for this meal! So we will stay where we are but we'll have to chip in."
That was too much for me. First he submitted an interesting, although a strange, proposition for consideration, then he accused me of stretching his leg and at the end he suggested to break something.
The further in the deeper and one day I really hit the ceiling.
People try to make a monkey out of me with their wisecracks about my abilities. Talking trough their hats, they make a mountain of a molehill and a federal case out of everything. To iron out the problem I try to handle it with kid gloves but it is not a snap. It seems that they get up on the wrong side of the bed every morning. Pinching pennies, squawking about everything, having half-baked ideas, putting their feet in their mouths, rubbing everything in - turn my stomach. Looking down their noses at me, they think that I am a nitwit, that I don't have a mind of my own and they try to lead me around by the nose. But I have to put my foot down, stick up for myself and give them a piece of my mind. I am on the shaky ground but making the best of it I hope that I will work things out. It is a hard nut to crack because the one who wear the pants in the family and rule the roost is her. She keeps tabs on everything and I have to weigh my words while talking to her. I can't afford to fiddle around with her. But I feel like I am knocking my head against the wall. However I have to hold my horses, put up a good front, sit tight and wait until I can get out from under and see daylight. By then I try to keep my nose clean, I put a good face on a bad business and without missing the boat, I enjoy the beauty of the language in which I am able to express my feelings and thoughts.
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