I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

The List | English Is Not So Easy 20

Lately, I have been thinking that I need to set the standard for what I am most interested in about English. I need to make sure what I want to know the most and what I don't need to learn in a hurry. If I am not sure what to ask, teachers will not give me the answers I want most. Recently, ChatGPT made me even more aware of this.

What is most important to me? As I explained in my previous article, non-native speakers learn English for a variety of reasons. In my case, for a long time, the reason was to pass the entrance exams for Japanese schools and to qualify as a teacher in Japan. After graduating from high school, some people still study English for the purpose of studying in an English-speaking country; others study English because they have a boyfriend/girlfriend who lives in an English-speaking country. But in my case, the main purpose of learning English is to be able to post my art on Newgrounds. This is an important task for me. Therefore, reading and understanding English texts perfectly and writing appropriate expressions is my most important mission.

On the other hand, I don't need to practice my speaking skills as much, because unfortunately I don't plan to (or cannot) look for a job abroad.

In conclusion, I am most interested in the meaning of English sentences, especially "what impression the sentence makes on you".

I found an interesting example of this problem in the video from Kevin's English Room (in Japanese), which is now my biggest English learning channel.

How are you の返し方: How to respond to "How are you?"

嘘乙www by 日本人: You're kidding LOL by a Japanese

I'm fine. はおかしい!?: Is "I'm fine" unnatural?!

In this video, Kevin mentioned how native speakers would feel if someone responded, "I'm fine, thank you. And you?" which is the most common phrase we learn in Japanese schools:

"...First of all, 'And you?' is a very uncomfortable phrase for me. It sounds like a superficial conversation between aristocrats. Only a princess would say it!"

"...For me, 'I'm fine' has a negative connotation, like 'Leave me alone!' I feel like you don't want to communicate with me anymore."

They then discussed what we can use instead of "I'm fine" and in this part Kevin explained a lot of useful knowledge.

“I’m happy.”

The other guy suggested this phrase, and Kevin replied, "Scary. I would think you were a psycho killer. It sounds like '(*grin*) ... Happy.' Scary, isn't it?"

According to Kevin, "How are you?" is just a greeting, so the person asking doesn't care if you're happy or not. So the answer "(I'm) happy" is far from what the questioner would expect. He also said that if you want to express that you are in a happy mood, you could say "I feel good," "I'm really excited," or if you want to include the word "happy" so bad, "I feel kinda happy" would be natural.

“Quite well.”

This is a polite response you can use in a business situation. The person who asks, "How are you?" will feel that you respect them. Kevin has personally recommended this phrase. "Quite" is the key word. It sounds like British English.

“I’m doing excellent.”

Sounds like a teacher in a good mood. It is also a polite expression.

Going back to my personal question, I got a lot of interesting insight into my question, and I learned a slightly different question from the video: "Who do you think the speaker would be?" like "And you?" sounds like a princess language, and "I'm doing excellent" sounds like a teacher language.

I would also like to add another question to my list of favorite questions: "Is it appropriate to the context?" I won't say what the exact word was, but I remember a native speaker giving me this advice: "I understand what you're trying to say, and that sentence is grammatically correct, but I've only seen that word in XXX videos!" This question may look different from the previous two, but I think it is also about "how native speakers would feel", so I want to add it to my list. Of course, this problem is a little easier to solve for non-native speakers, because we can estimate the usage in big English dictionaries. But we have to be careful.

In conclusion, I have made the following list of questions that I am most interested in.

My personal list of questions:

1. How does it sound?

2. Who do you think would say it?

3. Is it appropriate to the context?

I would like to study English from this point of view from now on, and if you have interesting stories about these questions, please let me know!