I’m Still Learning My English

I mentioned yesterday about how impressed I was with the talents of SF fans. Well, two versions of Saving Face sequel are currently being written by fans. An English version was started by a Vietnamese American fan a while back. A Chinese version has recently been churned out by a Taiwanese fan. As a fellow SF fan, I feel so thrilled and fortunate that there are people willing to spend time writing sequels to a movie I’m so crazy about. These people really surprise me with the scripts they come up with! What imagination they have! Our kids here should learn from these people.

To help contribute to the SF community, I’ve started translating the Taiwanese version into English for those fans who don’t read Chinese. Unfortunately, my Chinese grammar is so bad, I don’t dare attempt to translate the English version into Chinese for the fans.

When I first started translating, I felt a little stressed trying to get the writer’s idea across as close as possible in English. But as I progressed, surprisingly, the task got easier and hey, I was enjoying my task!

You guys are probably thinking I’m mad to be wasting my time on such things but surprise, surprise! With this new assignment, I find that I am actually learning Chinese as well as brushing up on my English. I’ve been checking through my pile of dictionaries, English, Chinese, English to Chinese, Chinese to English…I think my English vocabulary is really improving! Words that I wasn’t sure about in the past, now I’m more certain after checking their meanings in the dictionary. Words that I know but not sure how to apply, now I’m using them in the script. Isn’t that great?

The Chinese saying 活到老学到老 is so true. I always felt my English needs improving and now I am given the opportunity to do so! A bit strange kind of G-plan but it still is my G-plan!

Lastly, if you have been wondering about those strange outbursts by a friend in the shoutbox? This friend seems to be very supportive of the writer from her home country. She got upset when I shared with her there’s now a competition going on. A competition I felt will bring out the best between the writers. I also mentioned the first version had too many sexual urges which I didn’t like and could not understand so I kind of preferred the Taiwan version which was closer to a continuation of the original script by Alice Wu. Well, she felt I was talking behind other people’s back so I repeated my comments in the writer’s blog. Hope she’s happy about it now. Like I say, no need for me to lie. If I’ve said it, it has to be the truth. I don’t believe nor practise paying lip service to people.

Whether I eat mangoes or oranges, I think if I’m the one eating them and putting them in my stomach, I should have the right to say which I prefer. The truth is, I like mangoes but that does not mean I can’t eat oranges, right? And by eating oranges I’m being unfaithful to my mangoes? That would be funny, very funny…