Well I've been living in London for almost 7 months now. Compared
to living in China and South Korea the UK is certainly not as foreign a place
or as difficult to maneuver because English is the dominant language so
getting around on my own remains far easier than it was in Asia. Still I find
there are many things here that I am struggling to get used to.
As most people know the cars drive on the opposite side of
the road here as opposed to a majority of the rest of the world including the
States, South Korea and China. One of the results of this is that the driver’s side of the car here in the UK is on the opposite side of the car as I’m used to. Now despite how long I've
been here when Priya and I are leaving the mall or a store and going towards
the car I still usually walk to the driver’s side of the car thinking
it’s the passenger’s side. About a month ago I did this and to make matters
worse I did it to the wrong car and there was already a person sitting there in
the driver’s seat. So as I put my hand on their door I look in and saw a lady starring back at me. Whoops. I immediately looked
up like there was something in the sky and then tried to causally walk away to
our car. I know it didn't work but as long as I kept from making eye contact again I could try and fool myself into believing it did. Now obviously I have not had to get used to
driving on the opposite side of the road because I don't drive but I do walk
around a lot and to this point I still haven’t been able to train myself to
look the proper way when I’m crossing the street. I look left when I need to
look right and vice versa. So crossing the street has turned into quite a
strain on my neck and I've had to all but abandon jaywalking except on the
smallest of streets when there are almost no cars around. While I hate that I
am still struggling with this I think it is a problem many people have here
because when you are downtown a majority of the roads actually have arrows and
directions painted onto the street informing people which way they are supposed
to look before they cross the street. It is strange just how ingrained into my
mind it is what direction I am supposed to look when crossing a street and
unfortunately here it ends up being the wrong direction.
What day is it? Seems like a simple question but here I've
run into problems answering that question properly, especially if I have to
write it down. The standard way to write or say the date here is Day, Month and
Year whereas in the States it’s Month, Day and Year. Now when people tell me
the date I have no problem understanding what they mean even though they say
the day first (it’s the 10th of June) but when they write it down it
always takes me a minute to comprehend it. Today they would write 10/6/13. When
I see that I automatically think of October 6th 2013 but it of
course means June 10th 2013. When I’m asked to write down or say the
date I just automatically do the month first. So I've had to redo a bunch of
forms and applications because I wrote the date wrong without even thinking
about it.
What's your phone number? Again another simple question that I don't seem to be able to answer properly. In the States phone numbers are 10 digits when including the area code, which most people do at this point. When someone asks your phone number you respond with a set pattern of 3, 3, 4. Meaning you say the first 3 digits pause then the second 3 digits pause and then the last 4 digits by doing 2 digits pause 2 digits end. (da da da...pause...da da da pause da da pause da da). When giving the number most people really don't realize how important this pattern is. In America if someone starts to give you a phone number and they say 3031..02...462...7 it totally throws you off and makes it difficult to follow. Whereas if they just say 303...102...46...27 then it makes perfect sense. Here in the UK you have 11 digits in a phone number and the set pattern is 4, 3, 4. And the way it tends to be said is the first four digits are given (no pause in the middle) pause then the next 3 digits are given pause and then the final four digits are given with a pause in the middle. (da da da da...pause...da da da...pause...da da...pause...da da). This has been very difficult for me to adapt to especially when giving my number out. When I tell a person my phone number I still often just go 3, 3, 4 and then realize I have a digit left over at the end and I have clearly thrown the person off who is trying to write the number down because I'm messing up the set pattern. It can be quite embarrassing when I do it and I've had to apologize many times.
What's your name? A simple question that I can answer simply: my name is Zach. How do you spell that? Another simple question but one that I continue to mess up here. Of course the answer always begins with the letter Z. The problem is that I pronounce Z as Zee but here in the UK the letter Z is not pronounced that way rather it is pronounced as Zed. And no matter how many times I've had to spell my name out loud to someone I always say Zee rather than Zed and it has only been in the past month that I have even begun to almost catch myself but I'm still not there yet. It really is kind of embarrassing when you can't spell your own name at the age of 32.
What's your phone number? Again another simple question that I don't seem to be able to answer properly. In the States phone numbers are 10 digits when including the area code, which most people do at this point. When someone asks your phone number you respond with a set pattern of 3, 3, 4. Meaning you say the first 3 digits pause then the second 3 digits pause and then the last 4 digits by doing 2 digits pause 2 digits end. (da da da...pause...da da da pause da da pause da da). When giving the number most people really don't realize how important this pattern is. In America if someone starts to give you a phone number and they say 3031..02...462...7 it totally throws you off and makes it difficult to follow. Whereas if they just say 303...102...46...27 then it makes perfect sense. Here in the UK you have 11 digits in a phone number and the set pattern is 4, 3, 4. And the way it tends to be said is the first four digits are given (no pause in the middle) pause then the next 3 digits are given pause and then the final four digits are given with a pause in the middle. (da da da da...pause...da da da...pause...da da...pause...da da). This has been very difficult for me to adapt to especially when giving my number out. When I tell a person my phone number I still often just go 3, 3, 4 and then realize I have a digit left over at the end and I have clearly thrown the person off who is trying to write the number down because I'm messing up the set pattern. It can be quite embarrassing when I do it and I've had to apologize many times.
What's your name? A simple question that I can answer simply: my name is Zach. How do you spell that? Another simple question but one that I continue to mess up here. Of course the answer always begins with the letter Z. The problem is that I pronounce Z as Zee but here in the UK the letter Z is not pronounced that way rather it is pronounced as Zed. And no matter how many times I've had to spell my name out loud to someone I always say Zee rather than Zed and it has only been in the past month that I have even begun to almost catch myself but I'm still not there yet. It really is kind of embarrassing when you can't spell your own name at the age of 32.
Now even though everyone speaks English here some of the
things I have yet to become accustomed to actually do surround language and the
different vocabulary used here verses in the States. Priya and I actually made
a short post about some of the different words we (British vs American) used to mean the same things
back in January. Take a look here. Now a majority of the time the different vocabulary isn't a big deal because
they are two words that mean the same thing but there are times when the same
word can be used to mean two different things and that is when you run into
problems. One example would be the word lemonade. To me when I want lemonade
that means I want a lemon flavored drink that is some combination of water,
sugar and lemon juice. But if I order lemonade at a restaurant here I will end
up with a Sprite in front of me. To get what I want I had to learn to ask for
cloudy lemonade rather than just lemonade. Along similar lines the word chips here
do not mean what I am used to. For me chips are thin, crispy pieces of potato
or corn that you eat with sandwiches or something like that whereas here in the
UK if you ask for chips you are going to end up with French fries. So if I say I want a sandwich and some chips
people think I want a sandwich with French fries. For them the word I am
supposed to use to get the Doritos I want is crisps not chips. Now sometime I
just say the wrong word like when I’m dealing with money. Over here the units of
measure for money are pounds and pence and yet more often than not when I see
the price of something I say dollars and cents by mistake. Often, even if I
remember to say pounds I will still say cents rather than pence. I think, in
part that is because those two words rhyme. What is kind of odd about that
mistake is it never happened to me in Korea or China I always remembered the
right word to use there.
Finally there is the issue of what floor I’m on. When I walk
into the mall or the store I think of myself as being on the first floor
because that is what I would say in the States but when I say that here that is wrong. Here what I call the first floor is called the ground floor and what
they call the first floor is what I would call the second floor and so on. So
when I’m in a store and I look at the directory and see that the stuff I want
is on the third floor I often think alright I will just walk up two flights of
stairs and be where I want to be of course this is wrong. After walking up two
flights of stairs I am on what is called the second floor here rather than the
third. So numerous times I've been wandering around stores, especially book
stores, looking for the section I want before I realize I’m on the wrong floor.
So there are some of the things that despite being here seven months still cause me trouble and continue to remind me that I really am in a foreign country even if it isn't quite as foreign as some of the others I've lived in.
A friend of mine told me that when she was over here that she found that people always gave her phone numbers in a 5-3-3 grouping rather than the 4-3-4 which I described above.
ReplyDeleteI admit I have gotten that grouping here before too but the 4-3-4 has been the one I have been given the most often. I almost didn't put that paragraph in because I had been told phone numbers in different ways here. But I decided to put it in because while I can't promise the 4-3-4 is the "right" way to say a phone number here I can guarantee that the 3-3-4 method is certainly the wrong way as it only provides 10 digits of an 11 digit number.
A quick clarification from Priya -
ReplyDeleteThe 4-3-4 sequence is most commonly used for land lines whereas the 5-3-3 combination is used for mobile (cell phone) numbers. Not really sure why, but I think because the spacing in official forms tends to leave these gaps between the digits and has always done so people just get used to saying them that way. It's also easier to differentiate when hearing the number to someone if somene is saying it to you (of course if you're reading it you can tell from the first 2 to 3 digits if it's a mobile or land line)
Priya :)