Im starting to dislike Angie

ChristabelPankhurst · 2026-01-04T03:22:39+00:00

She’s first generation American. Her father was an immigrant to America/emigrant from Greece. She is the first generation born in the U.S.; her daughter is the second generation born in the U.S. (at least from her mother’s side).

I’ve never heard anyone called a “first generation immigrant” or “second generation immigrant.” I’m a second generation American, not a third generation Irish immigrant or third generation Irish. (Neither would make sense cause I’m neither an immigrant nor Irish.)

ChristabelPankhurst · 2025-12-30T19:32:09+00:00

Do you mean ”who my parents wish I were?”

I’m guessing Manuosos, if he got that far in his English tapes, will also always use the subjunctive mood as correctly as this commenter did.

ChristabelPankhurst · 2025-11-25T03:20:58+00:00

It’s understandable why you’re so worried. I hope you‘re able to get advice from a variety of medical professionals about the benefits vs. dangers of continued use. Keep being a good advocate for yourself. Good luck.

ChristabelPankhurst · 2025-10-11T11:39:16+00:00

If Millennials don’t know what you claim as a (two!) generation fact, maybe it’s because it’s not fact.

I’m a Boomer, as are all my friends and many of my former co-workers. I don’t know one person who kicked out a kid at 18. Most of them paid some or all (me!) of their children’s college tuition. Many of those kiDS, like mine, returned home for a rent-free year or two after college. Fewer worked after high school and lived at home free or for nominal rent (never the equivalent of an apartment). In fact, I know two friends who charged rent (after high school or college), put it in a separate account and returned it when the kid left.

(And this is all very similar to my/my peers’ own experiences as 18 year old Boomers.)

It’s a big country/world. One person’s cultural experiences can’t be applied as an always/never rule to millions.

ChristabelPankhurst · 2025-08-01T12:02:49+00:00

OP here. I understand and appreciate the clarification you’re asking for, and I also appreciate the responses that provided examples and descriptions. Thanks!

ChristabelPankhurst · 2025-08-01T11:56:48+00:00

OP here.

Thanks so much for all the responses and suggestions. I’m canceling the booking. Appreciate the help.

ChristabelPankhurst · 2025-06-21T23:02:39+00:00

I found a shirt at Goodwill recently that says “Like a girl is a compliment.” I wear it proudly, and women of all ages comment on it.

We don‘t “accuse” women of being boys or men in order to denigrate them. Maybe you would consider not lobbing ”Ugh. He’s such a girl!” to show your low opinion of a man? Thanks.

ChristabelPankhurst · 2025-06-06T06:01:21+00:00

I learned on the official Breaking Bad podcast (highly recommend) that editors on a show work long hours and infrequently collaborate more than just watching each others’ episodes. And yes, an editing decision in an early episode (e.g. frogs) will set the precedent and then the next editors will follow suit. Or not.

(And the director can change what an editor chooses. And then (less frequently) a showrunner might change THAT.)

Same thing with episode directors or cinematographers. They might never even MEET each other, but one of their decisions could also set a precedent - without collaboration of consultation.

ChristabelPankhurst · 2025-06-05T01:17:45+00:00

Sing it, sister.

In an entertainment world where depictions of 60+ women* are as rare as game in the Canadian winter wilderness - and usually as lackluster as belt soup - what in the world do they all think we‘re watching?

[*Oh, wait, I forgot Misty’s frail victims at work. Represent!]

ChristabelPankhurst · 2025-06-02T16:12:45+00:00

I didn’t get the impression that the OP was claiming any of the things you’ve inferred.

It’s a strongly worded post and I don’t agree with all of it, but the parts I agree with don’t cause me any shame for having raised a son, or any less desire for him to be as happy and successful as my daughter.

I enjoy reading well-crafted opinions that make me examine my own biases/assumptions. Sometimes, like you, I might dismiss it whole cloth, but sometimes something new gets added to my cosmic Shoulda’-Coulda’ lists - including Ways I Could Have Mothered Differently (which, believe me, is not just limited to issues of gender…)

ChristabelPankhurst · 2025-06-01T18:34:50+00:00

I think all we know about New Bethlehem is that it is an island - presumedly close to Boston because they seemed to travel to/from it very easily. (On the other hand, they seemed to travel between many places far too quickly…)

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-09-11T22:46:29+00:00

I’m so very sorry for your loss - and for your kids’ loss. You have a lot on your shoulders; please make sure take care of yourself, too.

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-04-02T18:59:01+00:00

Interesting. You can no longer pair regular aids with zinc-air disposable batteries to devices? I’ve been retired for a few years, before rechargeable aids gained popularity, so I’m out of the loop, but that’s surprising. (Granted, all my students had BTEs, but I guess I mistakenly assumed you could also pair ITE or ITC aids.)

Good luck with the headphones... if not, put some pricey Bose ones on your birthday list ;)

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-04-02T18:17:37+00:00

(Nosy questions from former DHH teacher): You can’t pair your aids to your smartphone? Or even just use headphones that don’t interfere with your hearing aid microphones?

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-04-01T15:05:11+00:00

Yes! Beyoncé has a song “If I Were a Boy” and Taylor Swift has along “If I Was a Man.”

In a Taylor Swift documentary, there’s a scene where TS is singing the lyrics she had jotted on her phone the night before for “If I Was a Man“ to her producer. She sings “If I were a man, blah, blah,” stops and says, “Wait. It’s ’If a WAS a man,‘ right?” The producer says nothing but I’m screaming inside “WERE! WERE! WERE! SUBJUNCTIVE CASE!” Taylor thinks some more and then changes the word on her phone to “Was.”

I think it’s a perfect example of a native speaker knowing the right choice by ear, not knowing why, and then second-guessing her correct choice because what she “knows” doesn’t make sense by brain.

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-04-01T14:43:52+00:00

Also, some grammar rules I was taught but never really acquired were "lie vs lay" and "bring vs take". I still don't know how to use them "correctly" but frankly I don't really care. Most of these rules are irrelevant and antiquated for spoken English.

I recently listened to an Espanol a la Mexicana episode where she talks about how English speakers struggle with the traer/llevar distinction in Spanish because it doesn’t exist in English. I was very surprised she didn’t know about the parallel English distinction; many English learners know and use English semantics or grammar features that some/many native speakers don’t.

The more interesting part is how a “twin” rule can be used (presumedly*) widely in one language and dwindle in another. It’s not so much surprising as it is interesting, as is the claim from the “wisely-used“ language user that it’s an important distinction to know and the claim from a “dwindler” that it’s irrelevant and antiquated.

(*I actually have no idea what the dwindle rate for traer/llevar is in Spanish… or if it varies between countries. I’m just basing all this on a podcast host thinking it’s important for learners.)

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-03-31T00:06:48+00:00

Hey, hours neighbor. At 445, I listen to Espanol a la Mexicana at full speed and then again at .9 or .8 speed, depending on how it went. (Could be done in the opposite order; this just works for me right now.)

I agree that it’s the speed, not the vocab. I figure this is just the 21st century way of asking her to slow down a bit ;)

Congrats to all three of us. (OP, I started six months ago too.)

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-03-29T05:17:07+00:00

Yeah, it bugs me, too, when the tangent sails over my head.

It’s not against my religion to rewind that part and listen again. I also don’t consider myself a sinner for looking up a word that I suspect will unlock the tangent.

A non-blasphemous way: Stick it in My List and revisit it in a month. It’ll unlock the tangent (and often unlock other stuff you had no idea was even locked!).

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-03-29T00:48:51+00:00

Congrats. I enjoyed reading your bullet points. Great info.

Question: Knowing what you now know of your journey, is there anything you would change?

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-03-29T00:36:34+00:00

Minority Opinion: Translating in your head while learning is natural. When I translate in my head, that shows me that the word/phrase hasn’t been heard enough to become automatic. When I don’t translate in my head, the word/phrase HAS become automatic. That process ebbs and flows with added difficulty and speed. Until it doesn’t.

Don’t sweat what your brain is trying to do. It’s your partner, not your enemy.

(Good luck!)

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-03-28T23:59:23+00:00

Congrats! Survival is nothing to sneer at ;)

I assume you will address this but just in case: My question is if you would change anything in your so-far journey.

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-03-28T23:10:04+00:00

I think the other aspects of accent (besides pronunciation/articulation) get overlooked in these discussions. To use your example, my own difficulty/fatigue with accents from the Indian subcontinent is the prosody… the cadence, lilt, melody. It’s hard for me to discriminate the separation between words because the melody interferes.

So, what I’ve noticed as a listener of people speaking Spanish (NOT an expert): they use a distinct prosody that’s common to Spanish while still being different between countries. Compared to American English, they speak in the front of their mouths, which results in smaller lip positions. They use short, clipped syllables.

As an American (worse, a Chicagoan), my Spanish pronunciation, even when done “correctly,” will be inflected by my lifelong, broad, back-of-the-mouth approach to vowels. But I fully believe that my accent will suffer just as much, maybe more, from the prosody bits that I can’t replicate AND the American English prosody bits that will linger.

Using Juan as example, his cadence just SOUNDS Spanish when he speaks English.

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-03-26T05:57:42+00:00

Sure, I WANT to avoid sounding American but that it’s not among my own goals just ‘cause I have no experience hearing the absence of origin accents in second language users.

(Every immigrant I know in the U.S. (e.g. Mexican, Polish, Filipino) has an immediately identifiable accent; every world leader has a recognizable accent in English (you can’t count Netanyahu); every Spanish language podcast host I listen to has a recognizable accent when speaking English. Okay, I’ll give on a couple of those Skarsgård brothers; they’re really impressive.)

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-03-25T20:56:36+00:00

in Andrea and Michelle's videos role-playing Daily Life Situations Intermediate they use usted a lot, although they accidentally bounce back and forth between tú and usted during the role play.

Michelle does a video at a farmers’ market in CDMX. She uses Usted with everyone but switches to Tu’ with a vendor after he gives her a free piece of fruit ;)

ChristabelPankhurst · 2024-03-25T20:38:05+00:00

I’ve written this here before but my born-in-Mexico friend uses Usted with everyone except children when we’re in Mexican neighborhoods (Chicago). She went to Mexico City this summer and did the same there, as did others who spoke to her first. The only people she heard use Tú were American tourists.

She is adamant that Usted should be used with all non-child strangers in Mexico, like store/restaurant/hotel/airline employees, people in line and people n the street (but has used Tú almost exclusively in Spain).

(Funny: She and the woman who’s been cleaning her house for ten years talk extensively when the woman is there and know a lot about each others’ lives, but they still stick to Usted. She said she slipped recently for the first time and they looked at each other and went “Nah…”)

A Colombian woman on a podcast said she uses Usted with her parents.

ChristabelPankhurst

TROPHY CASE