How’s your English? No bluffing!
“My English is good” they say. Good English! Can’t tell you how frustrating for me to hear those words. What a vague answer! It’s like someone either really sucks at English or is trying to be modest about it. In whichever case, it infuriates me. It’s an “in-no-man’s-land” sort of answer. It’s got “bluff” written all over it. Okay, maybe I’m blowing it out of proportion.
“Not bad English” is good! “Good English” stinks!
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve never been a fan of just “good”. “How are you today?” and you hear “good”, the polite version of “I wish I could jump off my balcony and end my life right now”. I mean if you’re really, truly and honestly good, it should be “pretty good”, or “very well”, or “super dooper”, “rockin’”, “fantastic”, “fabulous”, “marvelous” or just “couldn’t be better” and if you’re really bad, you should say something like “horrible”, “terrible”, “couldn’t be worse”, or “awful”.
Now, I have to admit, “not bad” is better than “good”. “Not bad” is like you’re telling me “you know, things should’ve been worse but, to my surprise, they’re actually not that bad.” You know what I mean? It just sounds more realistic to me. “How are you man?”, “yeah not bad”. You’ve got to be careful though, if you say it with a grim face (unhappy face) and a monotone sort of voice, it kinds of sets you right back to the annoying “good”.
Don’t be “vanilla”!
I use the “how’s your English?” question with second language learners as a test. If they come back at me with “good”, I know they stink! If they throw something else at me, I might go “Oh they might be good”!
The point is you should never settle for just “good”. If your English is just “good”, it’s probably not. If you’re just “good”, you’re vanilla! In slang, “vanilla” means just “normal”, “nothing special”, “boring”, so don’t be vanilla, be “hot” or “spicy”, you dig me? Be impressive, be remarkable, be a perfectionist, though neither you nor I will ever be perfect, but guess what, you stay in “Vanilla Nation”, you’ll never even get close.
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