How We See It

In the previous post, I talked about an eagle's view of things.

How about a mouse? Does a mouse see the same view an eagle does?

How about an ant?

Do you remember when you were a child and had to ask for a glass for water? You couldn't reach the faucet. You had to look up to an adult and ask for a glass of water. You could see under the adult's chin. You could see their shoes better than you could see their ears.

That was your perspective and it was different from the adult's perspective.

The eagle sees the rabbit as dinner. The rabbit sees the eagle as death.

They both see the Grand Tetons as a good place to live.

My perspective of the United States and American culture is different from your perspective.

Who is right?

Who is wrong?

Many times, we say, "It's a matter of perspective."

It depends on how you see it, on your experience, on your relationship with who or what you see, and the location of you - and the location of who or what you see.

Any time you see "spect" in an English word, you know it means something to do with eyes and seeing.

Spectacle
Spectacles
Spectacular
Introspective
Introspection
Inspection
Inspector
Inspect

Native speakers don't have to think about this. Deep in their brain, when they see or hear "spect" they see or hear "eye" and "look." This helps them remember and understand big long words with "spect" in them.

Everyone wants to speak and write like a native speaker. It doesn't matter what language, we want to speak it like a native - fluently.

Is that possible?

Maybe not completely.

We will never have the perspective or the experience of a native speaker.

Maybe we don't want to! Maybe second-language speakers have something special that is good, too. A different perspective on English. Different - not wrong.

Joseph Conrad was a Polish man. English was his third language and he did not learn it when he was very young. He is famous because of the novels he wrote in English. With a different perspective, he wrote beautifully in English that was a little different from the English writing of that time.

(His most famous novel is "Heart of Darkness" which is the basis of the movie "Apocalypse Now."

He kept his perspective. He polished his English.

You can do the same.

Getting a feel for the chunks of sound like "spect" will help you speak and write more freely.

You'll be operating from your gut (your stomach), expressing what you think and how you feel, instead of stoppppp -ppppping to think: What is the right word? What do I do now? How do I SAY that?

Big words in English all have these "chunks" in them. They are like bones in a good soup. They are what make the broth, give the soup its flavor and cause you to say,"Oh! This is CHICKEN soup! Or FISH soup! Or BEEF soup!" You can taste the difference, right? Beef does not taste like chicken. Shrimp does not taste like pork.

Eagle does not taste like rabbit.

Of course, I don't know what eagle tastes likes.

And I haven't tasted rabbit since 1971.

But I can guess they taste pretty different.

What do you think?

How do you see it?

What's your perspective on rabbits, soup, English, and learning a second language well?