During my homestay life in America,
many English sounds started flying about.
I sometimes felt strange upon hearing some English words.
The English word, “pretty” was the first one for me.
Generally speaking, the word “pretty” is one of the first words
we study in the first stage of learning English.
Such as:
“There are many pretty flowers.”
“It’s so pretty!”
The word “pretty” is used in these sentences to describe something cute.
However, many Americans use the word “pretty” in a different meaning, such as:
”Pretty much!”
”Pretty good!”.
Of course, Americans still use the word “pretty” to describe something cute,
but I was surprised to learn that the word “pretty” is also used overwhelmingly often to mean aother usage..
At first, I felt that they were saying,
“Cute much?!?”
“Cute good?!?”
Since they used it far beyond the one I knew,
I felt startled and strange upon hearing that.
When I heard girls or ladies say “pretty ～”, I could stand it. However, when I hear boys or men (especially adult men
with low voice) say it,
I felt weird and funny because it sounded like they said
“Cute～!!!” for me.
But, come to think of it,
I only learned the meaning of pretty as “cute”,
but in America, one of the authentic English spoken country,
they used the word to mean “very”,
which is actually one of the several authentic usages of the word “pretty” for them.
I arbitrarily just felt strange.
So I thought feeling strange for some English sounds was not so bad, it’s actually good because it means that I have discovered and acquired an authentic English usage of the word.
And in a few days, I was using “pretty” as if I had never felt strange! I started using it in one instance like below:
Host mother : Ryuji, You like this～, don’t you?
I : Yes, pretty much!
In America, there is “4H CLUB“ for youth development organization which is related with the Ministry of Agriculture.
My host siblings Sheldon and Elisa were some of the members of the club including Arthur who is a friend of Sheldon living in the opposite side of the street just before the host house.
Every year at the beginning of August,
the 4H fair was held and the members had prepared something for the exhibit.
For example, they would exhibit the pictures they drew, or leather crafts they made.
Elisa had to carry those things to the venue of the 4H fair,
so Sheldon, Arthur and I got to help her.
Days before the 4H fare, we prepared the things Elisa,
Sheldon, and Arthur needed. We placed the luggage into the trunk of the car and put the other luggage on the front seat,
Sheldon and Arthur got into the car first with a cardboard box.
I got into last but I could not have enough seat for me anymore since she drove a small Japanese car, so I sat on Arthur’s knee.
I felt so cramped and my head almost bumped the celling of the car. Seeing my cramped situation, Arthur said to me with impish laugh,
“Ryuji, you need more room! Hehehe!“
Hearing that, I thought to myself,
”What the hell is he talking about?!?”
“You need more room?!?”
“I just want to have a little bit more space!!”
“Using the word “room” is exaggerated”
※At that time, I knew only one meaning for “room”
that is a four walled corner of a building or house.
But I imagined that there was one more small room on top of the car’s roof that would fit my head,
so I could not help but laugh.
And a few days later,
I was watching a movie on TV with host father Joe.
I could see one scene where one man was cramped in a small room and the other man said that he looks so constricted
and that he needs more room, suddenly
I remembered the phrase Arthur told me in the car days ago,
that I also needed more room.
No sooner I found that “room” also means space,
so we could say “You need more room”
which means the same as “You need more space” in English.
The word stuck in my mind finally became clear so I felt relieved!
During my stay in America, every day I heard a lot of English sounds but I also remember the scenery associated with the English word. Not only the sound of the word but its scenery comes into my body and is filed inside of me.
So, when I hear the sound “room”, the scenery where Arthur told me “You need more room, hehehehe!” occurred to my mind and the scenery where I heard the phrase “You need more room” when I watched a movie with host father Joe.
But on the other hand, When I studied English in Japan and saw unknown words, I always checked the meaning of them through a dictionary., I forced myself to memorize them, like: “pencil” is “enpitsu(鉛筆)”, ”pond” is “ike(池)”.
And the scenery of those words are the pages of the dictionary
I guess!!!
But it was only boring drills to pass the entrance examination, it made me hate English and made me feel unmotivated from learning it. For me, the meaning of the words is the scenery associated with the sound. The more I have this kind of situation, the more I can clarify the meaning, and remember it better.
My homestay life itself became my language(English) growth,
I had so much fun every day..
