Son of bitch...

If you have Asian friends trying to learn English, do them - and yourself - a favor and steer them away from movie watching as a learning tool. At the very least, steer them away from movies with bad language.

A Korean friend of mine recently came to me for English help. Two of his questions were, back to back, as follows:

"What does mean, 'son of bitch', and how can use phrase, 'Let's get out of these clothes.'?"


If you're angry at me for repeating his questions, I'd ask you to please be an adult. This is real-life stuff, and I feel like sharing it. He was sincerely and quite innocently asking.

So, how does one begin to answer? I was like, "Uh...Young Hoon...well... The first one is not very nice. You probably shouldn't say it until you understand the language better, and then you still probably shouldn't say it. The second is, well... When you get married you can say that to your wife, but you shouldn't say that to anyone else.................ever."

He looked around, eyes darting back and forth around the room, mouth expressionless... Suddenly he lit up and gave me his usual rapid-fire "ok ok ok!" Which always lets me know that he gets something I'm explaining. Then he grinned and said, "I will say this, and then my wife will take off her clothes and then we will have sex!"

"Uh...yeah, sure Young Hoon, that's the idea. Good job." I'm the best English teacher Asia has EVER seen!