Accents Make English Challenge

Silicon Valley Tech V.P. Dr. Tong Liu was born in 1961 in the countryside near Yangzhou, the southern part of China. (See post one.) He never expected to go to university--not because he didn't want to or because he wasn't intelligent enough--but, the politics of the country made it seem impossible. (See post two.) Liu graduated from Nanjing University, and then--thanks to Professor T. D. Lee of Columbia University--he was given chance to take a physics exam allowing him further study at the University of Virginia in the U.S. (See post three.)

Liu, who had seen some movies, was very excited about exploring the U.S.  He wasn’t quite prepared for the language barrier, though.  While he stayed in the top of his class, English was always a challenge.

“But people are patient. They will laugh at me when I speak something a little funny. But they are patient.”

He had a Singaporean roommate who was a Buddhist monk. “I often confused between monk and monkey. I always told people he was a Buddhist and wanted to be a monkey.”

In fact, Liu had a lot of trouble with that monkey word.   Someone asked him if he had horses in his hometown. He said, "No, cows and monkeys." 

“I said, ‘The monkeys are very helpful to carry things around.’ He said, ‘You must treat them well if you’re able to catch them.’”

That’s when he realized-- Donkey. Donkey. Donkey.  It’s only one letter difference. One small sound.

And then there was the whole nickname issue. 

“First year, I was a T. A., there was some guy William. On the papers (the students turned in), I could not find a William, but a Bill.” 

Liu finally figured out that this William and Bill were one and the same.  

“I said, ‘Hey, William. Why don’t you write your name correctly? When you change it, I get lost.’” 

Finally, there was the store. “The food I could not recognize.” He ended up just picking up some cans of something which had the label, “food “on it. It turned out to be dog food.

“It did not taste that bad,” he recalled laughing until his eyes filled with tears.

To make things even more interesting, as luck would have it, of Liu’s three university professors, one was from Tennessee, one was from Germany, and the other was from Italy.  He was inundated with different accents.

“Interesting part of the story is one of my classmates is Greek. She always complained that the Tennessee professor speaks with a strong accent she could not understand.  I told her, ‘I have difficulty understanding the professor from Italy.’ She said, ‘No. I understand him very well.’"

(To be continued: Liu Learns Valuable Lessons from Another Socialist Country)