coming out of nowhere

yup, a sudden impulse to post an entry came out of nowhere.

just checked this note from a link on my facebook account. it's a note created by some girl, which is a friend of one of my acquaintance. I know everyone gets so touchy-feely as Feb 14th is getting closer, but I want to keep a little bit of my attention to this one. If you ask why, then it's not about the contents or anything about love. The answer is because she thinks that she has a good English. Is that true? Check this out for yourself:

" a good boy left me alone

at the first time i met you..
you seems like a kind and good boy
u showed me many good things..
u always care to me
u always make me smile
u make me sure that i'm the one whom know you the most
u make me sure that you're the right guy..
until i know that something has changed
i can feel it
slowly but sure you don't care to me anymore
you are so far away..
i can't reach you..
i can't feel your pressence..
...
then one day..
you told me..
that you love the other girl..
oh my God..
it's like a thunder in a sunny day..
i'm shocked..
dissapointed..
sad..
broken into pieces..
i'm sad coz this situation makes me feel that she is better than me
so you left me alone..
....
but now..
i'm happy^__^
i realize that you're not the best one
you're not my man...!
i'm still happy with my life without you..
so...
i can let you go boy...
=)"

okay. comments, anyone?

In my opinion, that was not even a good ENGRISH*, or even ENGDONESIAN**. And she claims that it IS a GOOD ENGLISH. The fact that she FEELS that she has a good English drops the score further.

Spotted a load of basic grammatical errors (for instance, "you seems" - should have been "you seem"), simply translating Indonesian sentences into English in a word-by-word manner without any regard to its context... and you say you got a GOOD ENGLISH.

Next time, practice English A LOT before claiming yourself to have a good English.
With this level of GOOD ENGLISH, you wouldn't pass a score of mere 20 on Madam Kosasih's*** English test. My best score on her test was around 40, but I had a TOEFL Score of 626 last year. All my thanks goes to her Spartan training :D

I've never claimed to have a good English myself, but I'm sure as hell that my English are better than yours. So please, don't humiliate yourself by claiming a good English with that note above.

little notes about something:
* Engrish - Japanese English. Known for their inability to pronounce "l" correctly and spell "r" instead of "l", Japanese people without proper English training tend to scrap the very basic structure of English sentences and vocabularies when they try to boldly speak this foreign language...

** Engdonesian - Indonesian English. Even worse than Singlish, Engrish, or any other hybrid language. Most Indonesian people with little to no English training tend to literally translate Indonesian sentences word-by-word, sometimes with incorrect vocabularies... and they proud of it.
Even those who had some basic proper English training on their school years still tend to translate word-by-word, and even though they had a better vocabulary, little-but-fatal mistakes occur often, especially in written texts. They still feel good with their English, though they couldn't care less about the context.
On the higher levels of education, most people are aware of their mistakes but they forgot (or too lazy) to mind THE WHOLE CONTEXT of the sentence. This is the source of the difficulty to understand (or even to read) English textbooks, as happened to most of my med student comrades.
Last, is the tendency to use the slang or informal form of English which are commonly found on English movies. While it's not a problem on conversations, it sports a big deal of trouble when one shamelessly uses it - without a second thought - in written texts. Just like the one above.

*** Madam Kosasih is one of the senior teacher at Canisius College. With more than 30 years of experience, she puts high standards to her student - and herself, as well. While it feels really depressing to always get scores less than 50 on her exams, I think it's the way she forces her students to always improve themselves. At least, that works for me. Flawless Continental and British form of English is her specialty, along with the manners, etiquette, and behavior of a royal descent. She walks with a dignified and proud aura radiating from her gestures, and teaches her students with a youthful confidence despite her age. One hell of a lady :D