ไว้ว่างๆใน post ครั้งหน้าๆ จะมาแชร์คำด่าหรือคำสบในภาษาอังกฤษที่ควรรู้ เพื่อประโยชน์ของเพื่อนๆที่กำลังจะไปหรือกำลังใช้ชีวิตอยู่ในต่างประเทศ (ที่พูดภาษาอังกฤษ) ถ้าอยากรู้ อย่าลืมติดตาม "Culture Butterfly by Nina" นะคะ
"Why we need to learn the "curse words or swear words" when living in a foreign country?"
(Episode 1)
When we are living in a foreign country, for whatever reasons, we need to learn new local knowledge and skills in order to survive, to live happily and peacefully, or to be productive as much as we can. Learning the curse words or swear words of the local language is also important. You don't need to be an expert, but just to know them enough.
I would like to share my personal stories during my time when I was in America to study and to work afterward. When I was studying in the university, one of my American friends teased me by saying something. At that time, I was quite young and new to America so I really did not fully understand the words he was saying to me. I was laughing, just to go along with him. I really had no clue if he was just teasing me or cursing me. So, it was a starting point for me to start learning the curse words whenever I could. I asked around from my friends and also learned from TV. I learned enough to get by with my daily life until I was working after I graduated. I had one of my close friends there at work and he is a Mexican. We often used the chat program at work where we could chat real-time by typing on our computers. There was one time when we were at it as usual, chatting and working ... and then we started to tease each other by writing back and forth. Being a foreigner from Thailand, I had to admit that I had limited curse words in English. So, when I was out of the curse words, I typed ... "You ... Son of a Bitch!" ... and after that he just did not respond back. I went to talk to him afterward and he was just angry with me and did not say a word back to me. I asked him a couple of times and again no response from him so I gave up. It had been like this for about a week until one day, I was walking to my car after work. He came to me and asked me how I understood the word "Son of a Bitch" and I told him that I learned it from TV and they were just curse words. So, he told me the meaning of the word "bitch." It meant the female dog that had puppies but did not know the male dog that fathered these puppies. He also was born not knowing his father so he was really upset when I said those curse words to him. When he calmed down a bit, he thought that I might not know the real meaning and did not mean to call him that because we had been friends for years so he decided to ask me. I apologized to him big time and that I really did not know the real meaning and there was no way that I would use these words to hurt him intentionally if I knew the real meaning. He forgave me and we became friends again.
Luckily, it was a happy ending for me this time, only because my friend gave me the chance to explain myself. In real life, sometimes we will not get the chance. So, the merit of this story is that it is important to learn curse words or swear words of the local language when you live in a foreign country, just enough to learn what those words are, their real meanings, whom you should say those curse words to ... only to close friends or to people in general ... to ensure you use them at the right time and place so you can survive and live happily and peacefully in that foreign country.
In my next posts, I will write about curse words or swear words you should know if it will benefit those who are going or already living in a foreign country (that speaks English).
Please follow "Culture Butterfly by Nina" if you want to know ... ;)