Something more light-hearted today!
Once we become familiar with the overall grammatical structure of a foreign language and have enough receptive vocabulary, we can start engaging with more real-life cultural content mediated through that language.
For many people — including me — being able to “consume” and engage with the culture(s) of a foreign language is one of the primary goals of learning it in the first place. Once you “unlock” this ability, the experience is immensely rewarding.
The cultural content we expose ourselves to in a foreign language can be both “high-brow” and “low-brow”. The point is that everything mediated through the language teaches us something about the language itself — by reinforcing our grammatical knowledge and exposing us to new vocabulary, expressions, etc. — as well as something about that culture (or cultures).
Anyway, that is a lot of preamble for what I actually wanted to share today. I was trying to think of something to send you and happened to notice this cartoon that has been stuck on my computer monitor for a long time.
This cartoon is from The New Yorker, a serious English-language magazine known for high-quality writing on everything from global politics to art and culture — and even fiction.
The New Yorker is also famous for its humorous and satirical cartoons. It is almost a running joke in English-language popular culture that sometimes its cartoons are so “intelligent” that they are difficult to understand, haha.
For what it’s worth, I have always enjoyed reading the magazine and find most of its cartoons very funny. In fact, both my husband and I have a habit of saving the ones we particularly like or find illuminating and sticking them up in our shared office or on the fridge, haha.
This one on my monitor caught my eye again today, so I wanted to share it with you.
Do you understand what the “joke” is?
A woman is on a date with a man, and the waiter presents her with a “new email” on his tray and says:
“For your appetizer, a work e-mail you accidentally glanced at and now need to respond to before enjoying the rest of your evening.”
I don’t know whether you have had this experience, but in this age of work, we are constantly “on duty” because we all have phones. When something comes up during our “off” hours, it can be very difficult to ignore it, so we end up dealing with the issue immediately, in real time.
This has certainly ruined many of my meals before, haha, so the cartoon really resonates with me with its dry humor. I hope this makes you chuckle too!
My broader point is that, as you become more and more proficient in English, you will be able to engage with all sorts of English-language cultural content like this. That aspect of foreign-language learning is itself immensely intellectually rewarding — quite apart from the more practical benefits of proficiency.
What is one example of English-language cultural content that you are now able to access that you couldn’t before?
今天來一點輕鬆的！
當我們對一個外語的整體文法結構已經有一定掌握，也累積了足夠的「接收性詞彙」（receptive vocabulary）之後，就可以開始接觸更多真正存在於日常生活中的文化內容。
對很多人來說——包括我自己——能夠透過外語去理解和參與那個語言背後的文化，本來就是學習外語其中一個最重要的目的。
而當你終於「解鎖」了這個能力之後，那種體驗其實非常有滿足感。
我們透過外語接觸的文化內容，可以很「高雅」，也可以很「低俗」；重點是，只要內容是透過那外語傳遞的，我們其實都會同時學到兩樣東西：
一方面，它會不斷鞏固我們對語言和文法的理解，也讓我們接觸新的詞彙、表達方式等等；
另一方面，它也會讓我們更了解那個語言背後的文化。
前言好像有點長，其實我今天只是在想，有甚麼比較輕鬆的東西可以跟大家分享，然後剛好看到這張已經貼在我電腦螢幕上很久的漫畫。
這張漫畫來自 The New Yorker 雜誌（《紐約客》）。
The New Yorker 是一本很有份量的英語雜誌，內容由國際政治、藝術、文化，以至文學創作都有，而且一向以高質素的文字著稱。
不過，The New Yorker 另一樣非常出名的東西，就是它的幽默和諷刺漫畫。
甚至在英語流行文化裏，有一個笑話就是，有些 New Yorker 漫畫好像「高深」到普通人看完會不知道笑點到底在哪裏，哈哈。
不過，我自己一直都很喜歡看這本雜誌，而且大部分漫畫我都覺得很好笑。
事實上，我和我先生都有一個習慣：如果看到一張我們特別喜歡、或者覺得特別一針見血的漫畫，就會把它剪下來，貼在我們共用的書房，或者貼在雪櫃上，哈哈。
今天我剛好又看到螢幕旁邊這一張，所以想跟大家分享一下。
你看得明白它的「笑點」嗎？
圖中有一男一女正在約會。侍應把一封「新電郵」放在托盤上，遞到女生面前，然後說：
“For your appetizer, a work e-mail you accidentally glanced at and now need to respond to before enjoying the rest of your evening.”
意思大概是：
「你的前菜是：一封你不小心看了一眼、然後現在不得不先回覆，才能繼續享受今晚剩餘時間的工作電郵。」（就是有很長的 relative clause 去形容那個 work email 是你現在看到了，所以不能裝作沒看到的）
不知道你有沒有試過這種情況。在現在這個工作年代，因為人人都有手機，我們某程度上其實是長期處於「on duty」的狀態。
即使已經是下班時間，只要突然看到一封工作訊息或者電郵，就很難真的假裝沒有看到。結果往往就是：本來應該屬於自己的私人時間，又馬上開始即時處理工作。這也真的毀掉過我很多頓飯，哈哈。
所以我覺得這張漫畫的「dry humor」特別有共鳴。希望你看到也會笑一下！
我今天真正想說的是，當你的英文程度愈來愈高，你慢慢就會發現，自己能夠直接接觸和理解愈來愈多像這樣的「真實」英語文化內容。
而我一直覺得，這本身就是學習外語其中一個非常有趣的地方——它很多時是比英文能力提升之後帶來的那些實際用途更有滿足感的。
你有沒有一些英語文化內容，是你現在已經可以接觸和享受的，但以前英文程度還不夠的時候做不到的？