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Beautiful Asian English

by Dr. Joseph Trunk

52 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-3111; ISBN 1-4251-1352-4; US$10.95, C$12.59, EUR8.54, £5.66

It all began when Jasmine said, "Have you ever seen so many penguins?" We were not at the zoo. We were in China Town.
Beautiful Asian English takes humor to an entirely new level.

About the Book

A few years ago, I began to study Mandarin Chinese in order to communicate with my ever increasing number of Asian friends. My teacher was a good friend of my future wife, and suggested that maybe it would be a good idea for me to meet Amy. After a few phone calls, Amy's sister agreed to the meeting, and for our first date, we went to a local Chinese restaurant. As is my nature, I criticized most of the dishes saying, for example, the shrimp was undercooked, the vegetables were too soft, the dumplings were lumpy, on and on. Amy just looked at me with curiosity, and said very little. After dinner, we sat outside, and talked for a couple of hours. She learned that I had been involved with Asian culture for many years. I studied Chinese mural paintings while I was doing graduate work in Art History, I began taking Shaolin Gung Fu in the early 60's. Later I progressed to the more gentle martial art of Tai Chi Chuan. She also discovered that after many disasters in the kitchen, I finally became quite good at preparing a variety of Chinese meals. As a matter of fact, on our second date, I cooked an elaborate dinner consisting of several popular dishes.

While I was born in the United States Amy was born, and raised in Asia. In childhood, she was not taught English, and only began to take classes in English after moving to California. Amy continues to study her Chinese to English manuals, and I've noticed that a fair amount of the material in these instructional manuals have grammatical errors, and errors of syntax, and spelling. Well, thank goodness. I would not have been able to prepare this work if everything my wife learned about using English was correct.

Over time, our relationship grew, and after receiving her parent's permission, and my mother's approval, we set a marriage date. We had a small wedding, and became husband, and wife.

As we began life together, I started to notice that Amy was using some rather inventive ways to express herself when she could not think of the English word that would have been correct. After awhile, I could not help but burst out laughing at her creativity. I finally began to keep track of her use of English, and that record has resulted in this book. I believe the reason for her cleverness is due to the fact that there are dozens, if not hundreds of English words which do not have an exact Mandarin equivalent; either in usage, or grammatically.

My objective for everyone reading my little book is to have fun, smile as much as you can, and maybe learn how to speak English more correctly.

I do sympathize with Amy, knowing that the transition from Mandarin to English is extremely difficult. In my case, after studying Mandarin for about a year, I was hopelessly confused about the use, and pronunciation of the four tones. Whereas I was learning words, and sentences, in actual speaking, I was terrible. I remember trying to order some food in a Chinese restaurant, and the waiter yelled at me, "I don't speak Korean!" I still make mistakes, but I'm getting better.

About the Author

The author's wife was born in Taiwan. Doc Joe was born and educated in the United States. His doctorate degrees are in Otological Science and Audiology.

Excerpts