A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2 page)

proper
 
 
adj.
1.
real or genuine;
2.
suited to a particular purpose;
3.
correct in behaviour; excessively moral.

properly
 
 
adv.
1.
in a proper way;
2.
in the precise sense.

properly

Today my first time taking taxi. How I find important place with bus and tube? Is impossibility. Tube map is like plate of noodles. Bus route is in-understandable. In my home town everyone take cheap taxi, but in London is very expensive and taxi is like the Loyal family look down to me.

Driver say: “Please shut the door properly!”

I already shut the door, but taxi don’t moving.

Driver shout me again: “Shut the door properly!” in a
concisely
manner.

I am bit scared. I not understanding what is this “properly.”

“I beg your pardon?” I ask. “What is
properly
?”

“Shut the door properly!” Taxi driver turns around his big head and neck nearly break because of anger.

“But what is ‘properly,’ Sir?” I so frightened that I not daring ask it once more again.

Driver coming out from taxi, and walking to door. I think he going kill me.

He opens door again, smashing it back to me hardly.

“Properly!” he shout.

Later, I go in bookshop and check “properly” in
Collins English Dictionary
(“
THE AUTHORITY ON CURRENT ENGLISH
”).
Properly
means “correct behaviour.” I think of my behaviour with the taxi driver ten minutes ago. Why incorrect? I go to accounter buy little
Collins
for my pocket.

My small
Concise Chinese–English Dictionary
not having “properly” meaning. In China we never think of “correct behaviour” because every behaviour correct.

I want write these newly learned words everyday, make my own dictionary. So I learn English fast. I write down here and now, in every second and every minute when I hear a new noise from an English’s mouth.

fog
 
 
n.
a mass of condensed water vapour in the lower air, often greatly reducing visibility.

fog

“London is the Capital of fog.” It saying in middle school textbook. We studying chapter from Charles Dickens’s novel
Foggy City Orphan
. Everybody know Oliver Twist living in city with bad fog. Is very popular novel in China.

As soon as I arriving London, I look around the sky but no any fogs. “Excuse me, where I seeing the fogs?” I ask policeman in street.

“Sorry?” he says.

“I waiting two days already, but no fogs,” I say.

He just look at me, he must no understanding of my English.

When I return Nuttington House from my tourism visiting, reception lady tell me: “Very cold today, isn’t it?” But why she tell me? I know this information, and now is too late, because I finish my tourism visiting, and I wet and freezing.

Today I reading not allowed to stay more than one week in hostel. I not understanding hostel’s policy. “Money can buy everything in capitalism country” we told in China. My parents always saying if you have money you can make the devil push your grind stone.

But here you not staying even if you pay. My parents wrong.

I checking all cheap flats on LOOT in Zone 1 and 2 of London and ringing agents. All agents sound like from Arabic countries and all called Ali. Their English no good too. One Ali charges Marble Arch area; one Ali charges Baker Street area. But I meet different Alis at Oxford Circus tube station, and see those houses. I dare not to move in. Places dirty and dim and smelly. How I live there?

London, by appearance, so noble, respectable, but when I follow these Alis, I find London a refuge camp.

beginner
 
 
n.
a person who has just started learning to do something.

beginner

Holborn. First day studying my language school. Very very frustrating.

“My name is Margaret Wilkinson, but please call me Margaret,” my grammar teach tells in front blackboard. But I must give respect, not just call Margaret. I will call Mrs. Margaret.

“What is grammar? Grammar is the study of the mechanics and dynamics of language,” Mrs. Margaret says in the classroom.

I not understanding what she saying. Mrs. Margaret have a neatly cut pale blonde hair, with very serious clothes. Top and her bottom always same colour. She not telling her age, but I guessing she from 31 to 56. She wearing womans style shoes, high heel black leather, very possible her shoes are all made in home town Wen Zhou, by my parents. She should know it, one day I tell her. So she not so proud in front of us.

Chinese, we not having grammar. We saying things simple way. No verb-change usage, no tense differences, no gender changes. We bosses of our language. But, English language is boss of English user.

Mrs. Margaret teaching us about nouns. I discovering English is very scientific. She saying
nouns
have two types—countable and uncountable.

“You can say
a car
, but not
a rice
,” she says. But to me,
cars
are really uncountable in the street, and we can count the
rice
if we pay great attention to a rice bowl.

Mrs. Margaret also explaining nouns is plural and singular.

“Jeans are pairs,” she says. But, everybody know jeans or trousers always one thing, you can’t wear many jean or plural trouser. Four years old baby know that. Why waste ink adding “s”? She also saying nouns is three different gender: masculine, feminine, and neuter.

“A table is neuter,” she says.

But, who cares a table is neuter? Everything English so scientific and problematic. Unlucky for me because my science always very bad in school, and I never understanding mathematics. First day, already know I am
loser
.

After lunch breaking, Mrs. Margaret introducing us little about verbs. Verb is just crazy. Verb has verbs, verb-ed and verb-ing. And verbs has three types of mood too: indicative, imperative, subjunctive. Why so moody? “Don’t be too frustrated. You will all soon be speaking the Queen’s English.” Mrs. Margaret smiles to me.

pronoun
 
 
n.
a word, such as
she
or
it
, used to replace a noun.

pronoun

First week in language school, I speaking like this:

“Who is her name?”

“It costing I three pounds buying this disgusting sandwich.”

“Sally telling I that her just having coffee.”

“Me having fried rice today.”

“Me watching TV when me in China.”

“Our should do things together with the people.”

Always the same, the people laughing as long as I open my mouth.

“Ms. Zh-u-ang, you have to learn when to use
I
as the subject, and when to use
me
as the object!”

Mrs. Margaret speaking Queen’s English to me.

So
I
have two
me
s? According to Mrs. Margaret, one is subject
I
one is object
I?
But I only one I. Unless Mrs. Margaret talking about incarnation or after life.

She also telling me I disorder when speaking English. Chinese we starting sentence from concept of
time
or
place
. Order like this:

Last autumn on the Great Wall we eat barbecue.

So time and space always bigger than little human in our country. Is not like order in English sentence, “I,” or “Jake” or “Mary” by front of everything, supposing be most important thing to whole sentence.

English a sexist language. In Chinese no “gender definition” in sentence. For example, Mrs. Margaret says these in class:

“Everyone must do
his
best.”

“If a pupil can’t attend the class, he should let
his
teacher know.”

“We need to vote for a
chairman
for the student union.”

Always talking about mans, no womans!

Mrs. Margaret later telling verb most difficult thing for our oriental people. Is not only “difficult,” is “impossibility”! I not understanding why verb can always changing.

One day I find a poetry by William Shakespeare on school’s library shelf. I studying hard. I even not stopping for lunch. I open little
Concise Dictionary
more forty times checking new words. After looking some Shakespeare poetry, I will can return back my China home, teaching everyone about Shakespeare. Even my father know Shakespeare big dude, because our in our local government evening classes they telling everyones Shakespeare most famous person from Britain.

One thing, even Shakespeare write bad English. For example, he says
“Where go thou?”
If I speak like that Mrs. Margaret will tell me wrongly. Also I finding poem of him call “An Outcry Upon Opportunity”:

’Tis thou that execut’st the traitor’s treason;

Thou sett’st the wolf where he the lamb may get

I not understanding at all. What this
“’tis,” “execut’st”
and
“sett’st”?
Shakespeare can writing that, my spelling not too bad then.

After grammar class, I sit on bus and have deep thought about my new language. Person as dominate subject, is main thing in an English sentence. Does it mean West culture respecting individuals more? In China, you open daily newspaper, title on top is “
OUR HISTORY DECIDE IT IS TIME TO GET RICH
” or “
THE GREAT COMMUNIST PARTY HAVE THIRD MEETING
” or “
THE 2008 OLYMPICS NEED CITIZENS PLANT MORE GREENS.
” Look, no subjects here are mans or womans. Maybe Chinese too shaming putting their name first, because that not modest way to be.