Watch What You Say

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

• impact
• settings
• throwing
• profanity

• fluent
• tongue
• swear
• native speaker

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

When learning a foreign language, it is common for new speakers to be curious about profanity. As people become more fluent in a language, they often incorporate street slang into their academic vocabulary.

However, a common mistake for speakers of a foreign tongue is to swear (or curse or cuss) inappropriately. Most curse words do not directly translate from one language to another. It is very difficult to understand the connotations of profanity in another language. You can easily offend a native speaker by using certain words in the wrong context.

One such word is one we refer to here as the f-word. No doubt, you’ve heard it spoken in American movies.

Listen to Mason and Logan talk about why this word is not appropriate for all settings.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Mason

Logan

Mason:  When I talk I tend to swear a lot. I don’t, I don’t really think about it, it just kinda happens, you know, in my speech, for emphasis or just to fill space or whatever. It’s something that we insert, you know, into sentences for… you know if I really liked a movie, I’d say, “Man that was an f-in’ good movie.” You know, I wouldn’t actually say that, you know, I’d say… I’d swear…

Logan:  Right, yeah.

Mason:  You know, or…

Logan:  The f-word is probably, of all the words, I think in our culture, is the worst swear word you could say. Any kind of a… you wouldn’t go into an interview and say, “Man I need this f-in’ job.” to the… to anybody!

Mason:  Uh-huh. Yeah. It’s just, it’s kinda, it’s a street thing, you know. I mean, it started as, like, a… you’re trying to, you’re throwing it in your conversation ‘cause you wanna act tough. Right? Cause you wanna prove your stuff and…

Logan:  Or it shows how angry you are. If you say, “I’m really mad.” or “I’m really f-in’ mad.” That, the “f-in’” part gets the really… shows how angry you really are.

Mason:  It’s a funny thing ‘cause I studied journalism and I kept on, my four years at college, I kept on trying to convince the editor that I needed to be able to use it in my columns, uh, because, exactly that. There are certain some times, it’s just… especially in the written word where you can’t inflect with your voice, that throwing that in there, people reading… it would have the impact.

 

Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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