Well let me start by saying I am a grown up. Happy to help with english. I am most comfortable with english. Though true and weird story, no one is sure if it is my first language or not. Not even me. My first word was the same in a number of languages that were spoken in my home at the time. So which one was I speaking? I don't remember saying my first word. I was 9 months so I don't actually know. I am a native english speaker. I grew up in an international commune, so I have spent over 40 years helping people with english. I have lived all over the world and done tandem in different places over the years as well as in my home growing up. I married a native speaker of Finnish, so I have done some tandem there too, and for his friends back in his university days. In highschool too I had a number of European buddies who I helped constantly with english also. Soooo 40 plus years of english help experience available.
I speak a bit of Germany and Finnish, a few words in Spanish, a few words of korean though I never learned to read or write them so I am limited to verbal use only. A few words of Dutch, Swedish and Polish....
I grew up between Harvard University and MIT. Many of the commune members were students or professors there. Then we moved to the suburbs, a mile from the spot where "the shot heard round the world" was fired. The American Revolution, began on Lexington Green evidently early in the morning. It isn't just the south that likes to re-enact stuff.... Tragically the north does it too once a year in Lexington a mile from where I was sleeping at some unholy hour of the morning. Yes it used to wake me up.
From there to university for a while then lots of traveling met my spouse, he got his PhD, and we moved to Canada for 2 years, Winnipeg. From there we returned to MA (Massachusetts) got married, moved to Vienna die haupstadt von Austereich. hope I spelled all that right possibly not. 4 years in Vienna we then returned to Boston to have a family but that exploded due to allergies to off label chemicals in American food that almost killed me a few times. Soooo we sold our home and bought a piece of land where I now produce the food I eat myself.
Well that is my story... What's yours? And how can I help you with english?
I am now in my mid 40s, I live still with my husband, I have a dog, some goats and chickens and a horse instead of a car which is fine because I never learned to drive anyway. Unbfortunately we never did start the family we planned to have. The dog is my only progeny.
I am hoping to find some nice penpal/s from well I dream of someone from a little island in the Hebrides, or Greenland, or The Faroes, or a science out post in the arctic somewhere. I would hope you would be somewhere in my general age bracket 30 to 60. My hope is that it might be a relationship we can build over time and one day still be nurturing when we are old and in diapers seeking our lost teeth cuz the old age dementia caused us to forget where we put them.
I am however available to help anyone of all ages with english. Of course, you must understand I speak the english of the North East Coast, so if you are looking for a whole bunch of bless your heart and other southern stuff you are looking in the wicked wrong place.
Wowww i read what you wrote with my breakfast and i think it is super interesting what you wrote!!! πππ Perhaps if you like it maybe one time we can interview you for the forum? Because there are a lot of things to ask about you reading the above!!! There are now a lot of super nice interviews on the forum and if you are maybe interested to be interviewed you can see others here: https://penpal-gate.net/forum/12-everyday-life-and-customs/9647-overview-of-interviews
ANDDD i remembered what you said about for example the real estate between words. π I wrote it in my notebook so if you want to say that there is a lot of space between the things you say there is real estate between them like you explained in the other forum. π
I am happy to do an interview. I dunno how interesting I am.
I don't find myself particularly interesting.... But happy to answer any questions anyone has.
Yes, when you say there is real estate, that means there is distance, or a lot of space between 2 points.
For example, there is a lot of real estate between being decent at mathematics and actually being good at it.
Or between the house being clean and the house not being dirty.
Or dinner being good and dinner being edible.
Are you familiar with the word "wicked?" π There is a lot of real estate between it's standard dictionary definition and how we use it where I live in the north east. We say it here not to mean evil or bad. But instead it often means lots or very. So wicked cool doesn't mean evil cool. It means VERY cool!
So if someone says there is a wicked lot of real estate, between Trump and sanity, what are they saying? I w2ill give you hint, they are saying 2 things. π
I am happy to do an interview. I dunno how interesting I am.
I don't find myself particularly interesting.... But happy to answer any questions anyone has.
Yes, when you say there is real estate, that means there is distance, or a lot of space between 2 points.
For example, there is a lot of real estate between being decent at mathematics and actually being good at it.
Or between the house being clean and the house not being dirty.
Or dinner being good and dinner being edible.
Are you familiar with the word "wicked?" π There is a lot of real estate between it's standard dictionary definition and how we use it where I live in the north east. We say it here not to mean evil or bad. But instead it often means lots or very. So wicked cool doesn't mean evil cool. It means VERY cool!
So if someone says there is a wicked lot of real estate, between Trump and sanity, what are they saying? I w2ill give you hint, they are saying 2 things. π
Thank you very much for your reply @Wildflower-Farm!!! πππ I will write you private about the interview but i think it is super interesting to write what you think about things. So i would like it very much. π In the interview you can get to know people a LOTT better so i try interview people as much as i can who i think are nice for the forum so everybody can read who wants it. π»ππ»
And i think i can solve the riddle!! Because wicked means very you said. And real estate is distance like there is real estate between kpop and VERY heavy music. And you said there is a wicked lot of real estate, between Trump and sanity. So you mean there is a lot of space between Trump and a sane person? Because wicked is a lot and real estate is the space!! π
Can't fool you with my americanism! You got it. Nothing sane about that orange deviant. He is as.... ( Oooh here is another one for you! ) Whacka-doodle-doo, as someone in an insane asylum. Christ, I can not believe he is in the oval instead of a padded room in a strait jacket in a locked ward....
Whacka-doodle-doo=cray cray as you kids might put it.
Thank you very much for your reply @Wildflower-Farm!!! πππ I will write you private about the interview but i think it is super interesting to write what you think about things. So i would like it very much. π In the interview you can get to know people a LOTT better so i try interview people as much as i can who i think are nice for the forum so everybody can read who wants it. π»ππ»
And i think i can solve the riddle!! Because wicked means very you said. And real estate is distance like there is real estate between kpop and VERY heavy music. And you said there is a wicked lot of real estate, between Trump and sanity. So you mean there is a lot of space between Trump and a sane person? Because wicked is a lot and real estate is the space!! π
You have a very funny way of writing English!! π π But it is nice to write the things you say. I have at home a notebook and i write things in English and also in French if people say for example quotes or other things that i like how they say it. Bc you can remember it.
Owww and i added this forum in the overview of the New Members forum for if new members want to learn English too. I hope that is ok!! π
Another one of my favorite ways to say someone is insane or stupid, is to say they have been drinking from a lead sippy cup. as in lead poisoning. Geez... I am maybe not very nice?
due to allergies to off label chemicals in American food that almost killed me a few times.
I have the same problems.
Do you?! Coming back from EU, I discovered mine. It was so terrible because they are very serious in my case. I had until then never heard of something like that. An allergy to chemicals in food.... I was shocked. It blew my entire life up.... Exploded it completely. I had to find a very different way to live. I did, but yeh it changed everything.
I have the same problems.
It was so terrible because they are very serious in my case. I had until then never heard of something like that. An allergy to chemicals in food.... I was shocked. It blew my entire life up.... Exploded it completely. I had to find a very different way to live. I did, but yeh it changed everything.
You just described my life π. I'm also highly allergic to chemicals in products. I had to refuse from many products from supermarkets. For example I can't eat candies, chocolate and all that sweet stuff that is sold there.
You just described my life π. I'm also highly allergic to chemicals in products. I had to refuse from many products from supermarkets. For example I can't eat candies, chocolate and all that sweet stuff that is sold there.
So sorry.... I almost died several times had to be rushed to hospital anaphylaxis. After lots of testing my specialist in allergies told me I needed to move somewhere that I could do clean food for myself. Now, I live on a 5 acre farm. I keep goats for dairy, chickens for eggs, and grow everything else truly organic from clean ground. i used to live down town and have a convenient life. Now I am in the middle of nowhere often alone producing my own food creating my life from the ground up. I had a plan. I was gonna have kids right near down town Boston......... Enter allergies which exploded it all. Out to the middle of nowhere I have had to learn a totally different way to live. All so I can live.
I almost died several times had to be rushed to hospital anaphylaxis.
Oh my, that sounds terrible. No, I haven't got such terrible complications, but I also had some not very pleasant moments with my allergy in the past and sometimes in the present that also changed my life.
I am sorry it is so difficult. I wish I had a solution that didn't blow life up.
What I will say is... Sometimes, the biggest life changes and new ways of living can bring out the best in us.
Coming out here to farm, changed not just my life, but me. For the better.
Well that is my story... What's yours? And how can I help you with english?
I am now in my mid 40s, I live still with my husband, I have a dog, some goats and chickens and a horse instead of a car which is fine because I never learned to drive anyway. Unbfortunately we never did start the family we planned to have. The dog is my only progeny.
I am hoping to find some nice penpal/s from well I dream of someone from a little island in the Hebrides, or Greenland, or The Faroes, or a science out post in the arctic somewhere. I would hope you would be somewhere in my general age bracket 30 to 60. My hope is that it might be a relationship we can build over time and one day still be nurturing when we are old and in diapers seeking our lost teeth cuz the old age dementia caused us to forget where we put them.
I am however available to help anyone of all ages with english. Of course, you must understand I speak the english of the North East Coast, so if you are looking for a whole bunch of bless your heart and other southern stuff you are looking in the wicked wrong place.
Hi and welcome! It sounds like you live on a farm, may I ask why you never learned to drive? If you live in rural USA I'm having a hard time picturing life without being able to go places with a vehicle π
On a side note I noticed that you tried to revive a bunch of topics in the "politics" forum category, I think most of us were kind of burned out by the previous back and forths we already had so you didn't get too many replies but I'm sure it's only temporary π
Hi and welcome! It sounds like you live on a farm, may I ask why you never learned to drive? If you live in rural USA I'm having a hard time picturing life without being able to go places with a vehicle π
On a side note I noticed that you tried to revive a bunch of topics in the "politics" forum category, I think most of us were kind of burned out by the previous back and forths we already had so you didn't get too many replies but I'm sure it's only temporary π
Why I don't know how to drive.... I was 5 when I was hit by car. My pelvis was shattered. I still have scars in various places on my body from this event. I am 44 years old I still have PTSD nightmares. Trauma to the head the damage they never got to the bottom of but they think it is healed. the state of my psychology ruined perminantly by PTSD or even CPTSD. This is one reason I don't drive. I see cars as big killing machines that I do not want responsibility for.
Another reason, I don't want to be part of the problem of climate change. For most things around town my horse works fine. I live in a tiny town by American standards and it is a farming community. My farm, operates a permaculture model and runs on solar power. The vast majority of our heating is done by wood stove. I am always seeking ways to be more environmentally friendly. We are on a well, we have a septic tank no connection to a sewer system is even available in this town. We chose to remain connected to the power grid. All of our electricity is produced here via solar panels on the roof. We stay connected because our excess can further help our region cut it's environmental footprint by contributing to the electricity that others receive and having it come from a clean source. So, it isn't just driving. But this place remains an imperfect work in progress while it's foot print has been dramatically shrunk to quite small more work remains to do. And it will be done as I can finance it.
I am married. We maintain in this era a 1 car household. My husband has one. Often he is at work. So it is rarely at the house. But for some occasional things I have him go get what we need or even more rarily the dog and I sit in passenger seats and go with him. Around here, a single car household is as rare as a chupacabra. Our goal is for my spouse to get an electric car when he dumps the current one. Which will be fed electricity created by the sun, to further cut our foot print. Eventually I will replace the stove in the kitchen with a wood cooking stove that was common 150 years ago, and I will run our plujmbing through it so hot water is created there and then sent to the hot water tank where it will be stored. At that point, the oil burner will be removed. We will have no further need of it at all. Already, we keep it super low at just high enough to produce hot water and prevent pipes freezing while the actual heat comes from wood stoves. So if another solution can be had for these issues I can cut it all together. Which is a goal of mine.
I did try to revive the politics. Mainly because I have started noticing some scary things related to the media where I live. I am fearful that soon we will lose access to accurate and honest information about what is happening in our politics and in the world in general especially in relation to us. So while I am not necessarily looking to argue, part of why I am here to help myself stay an informed person as long as possible until there is an internet crackdown which I view as being in our future at which point the lights go our and you will all have to pray for us like you do for the citizens of North Korea or something..... So yes, I was trying to bring that back. I also enjoy mocking political stupidness. It is a bit of a hobby of mine. And all countries engage in it though some more than others for example mine at the moment unfortunately.
Why I don't know how to drive.... I was 5 when I was hit by car. My pelvis was shattered. I still have scars in various places on my body from this event. I am 44 years old I still have PTSD nightmares. Trauma to the head the damage they never got to the bottom of but they think it is healed. the state of my psychology ruined perminantly by PTSD or even CPTSD. This is one reason I don't drive. I see cars as big killing machines that I do not want responsibility for.
Oh I'm sorry that sounds terrible. I was going to ask if you still ride with other people, but after I kept on reading it looks like it's a yes.
Another reason, I don't want to be part of the problem of climate change. For most things around town my horse works fine. I live in a tiny town by American standards and it is a farming community. My farm, operates a permaculture model and runs on solar power. The vast majority of our heating is done by wood stove. I am always seeking ways to be more environmentally friendly. We are on a well, we have a septic tank no connection to a sewer system is even available in this town. We chose to remain connected to the power grid. All of our electricity is produced here via solar panels on the roof. We stay connected because our excess can further help our region cut it's environmental footprint by contributing to the electricity that others receive and having it come from a clean source. So, it isn't just driving. But this place remains an imperfect work in progress while it's foot print has been dramatically shrunk to quite small more work remains to do. And it will be done as I can finance it.
I have mixed feelings when it comes to climate change. We should all acknowledge it's a real thing and be mindful of the environment, but there's something almost cult-ish about it that kind of rubs me the wrong way. All modern countries have cut down on emissions in the last few years/decades, however China, India, Bangladesh, Russia, etc couldn't care less about climate change. This was posted last week by the Indian Ministry of Coal:
I think the US is currently in a pretty healthy spot when it comes to balancing the economy and being mindful of excessive pollution, but places like Europe (France being a prime example) are burying themselves with countless norms and regulations for the sake of climate change that are completely killing our economy and making people's lives hell. Not only does it make us poorer, but we also need to import more and more stuff which... increases pollution even more. What I'm trying to say is: let's keep working towards clean energy, but we should celebrate our efforts more instead of being so alarming about how much harm we're doing. Those who do want to be alarming should fly (row? π) over to Asia to maybe lecture them first. What is your stance on this?
On a side note, not to be that guy but.. wood burning generates tons of particulate matter π (that's also what I use).
I did try to revive the politics. Mainly because I have started noticing some scary things related to the media where I live. I am fearful that soon we will lose access to accurate and honest information about what is happening in our politics and in the world in general especially in relation to us. So while I am not necessarily looking to argue, part of why I am here to help myself stay an informed person as long as possible until there is an internet crackdown which I view as being in our future at which point the lights go our and you will all have to pray for us like you do for the citizens of North Korea or something..... So yes, I was trying to bring that back. I also enjoy mocking political stupidness. It is a bit of a hobby of mine. And all countries engage in it though some more than others for example mine at the moment unfortunately.
I think honest and accurate information is long gone. If anything, I think it's good that people do realize that some supposedly trusted sources actively try to lie and manipulate the general public. I feel like it's a good opportunity for some people to realize the world isn't as simple as they thought it was.
Why are you expecting an Internet crackdown? I definitely wouldn't mark the US as being at risk in that regard
I apologize Etienne, I must explain this through several posts and it may not let me do it all at once. I want to give you a real response though because I think it is important to do as the issues at hand are deeply important. So please bear with me.
Ooooh where to begin? Yes, it was terrible. I can never convey the
terrible in words sufficiently. To properly convey it, I would have to
set you on fire and literally have you treated like a third degree burn
victim over more tha a third of your body. And I won't do that because I
am not evil, cruel, or interested in assaulting or harming anyone. It
would require you hearing a doctor tell you as you are lying there dying
that no you can't have a tylenol till morning cuz you will die during
the night and the hospital doesn't want to charge insurance if you will
soon be dead anyway. It is looking that doctor straight in the eyes and
saying to him at 5 years old, " I will be here in the morning bitch, so i
can spit on you." Then being there in the morning by sheer force of
will and nothing else.
I DO occasionally ride in cars with someone else driving,. I ride in
cars probably less than 97% of people do. I don't like getting in the
car. If I can avoid it I will. When we purchase a new one which is
coming. We will keep it charged with solar electricity to further cut
our footprint.
One thing I learned from nearly dying at 5 and
then finding the joke was on me cuz I am dyslexic.... Quality of life is
as important as continued life. Money, isn't worth much. You can't eat
it. You can't drink it. All you can do is buy crap with it. Well....
What happens when we have destroyed all our resources and there is
nothing left to buy? So no I don't agree with you that the economy
should come before climate change. I do however think that there are
ways to make folks feel as though they are losing less switching to a
more environmentally sound model. I do believe, we need to look at the
way we are balancing the economy as we go and see how we might make it
work better so that there is an economy less built on fictional
worthless paper dollars than on clean water and earth. I believe
strongly there are ways to do it. I believe too there are ways to create
a life around these principles in which we lose nothing of our modern
existence. The fact that major governments are too scared of bad actors
who have grown quite rich through exploiting what belongs to all of us
and abusing it, isn't an argument against change. It is actually an
argument for change.