I’m always interested in hearing what you guys think.  No matter what you think.  I think sharing a variety of opinions is a healthy thing, both for English learning AND just in general.  Please keep throwing in your “2 cents”.  Ie.  Your opinion in the comments section.

Today I want to talk about how we teach young kids in different cultures, AND how you think we SHOULD be teaching young kids.

I think most countries in the world have realized that history has been unfair to women in very many ways.  In history, it’s usually men who went to school, men who earned the money, men who had the power etc.  Even today, we see that it’s often easier for men to get promotions at work (Not all of the time, but often).

We’ve made a lot of progress.  We now see huge companies, like Yahoo, with female CEO’s.  We see women who are presidents of countries.  Times have really changed a lot in most places throughout the world.

I have some questions for you:

What more needs to be done to help women have more opportunities in the world?  Is it already “fair” or do we still have a lot of work to do in order to make things more fair to women?

SHOULD we be treating men and women in the same ways when they are children?  In your opinion, do you believe that there are naturally some jobs that are better for men and some jobs that are better for women?  Do you think this idea is total BS?  For example, do you think that being a police officer is more of a “man job” and being a nurse is better for women?  Is that crazy?

If a couple gets married and has 2 kids and the mom stays home and takes care of the house and kids while the father “brings home the bacon”  (That means earns the money for the family) is that ok?  Should we respect a woman’s choice to do this?  Is being a “housewife” ok?

What about if the father stayed home and the mom worked?  Should we think that is normal too?  Should people respect a man for staying home with the kids while his wife works?  Is this “manly”?  Is being a “house husband” ok?  Why or why not?

Should we try to forget words like “manly” or “womanly” in our languages?  Are there some types of attitudes and behaviours that are more suitable to men and women?

Should we teach our sons and our daughters the EXACT same things ALL the time?  Should there be any difference in how we teach men and women to behave?   What is the difference between men and women in this world in your opinion?

Please share where you are from and why you think the way you do.  Thanks so much!

By the way, here is a video I just made.  I’d love to hear what you think of this style of video.  If you like it, please subscribe for free to our English Learning Videos  I’m going to be making very many!  There will be awesome stuff for free and even cooler stuff in the VIP section!  Great news for all.  Here is the video on the phrasal verb put down

I was just on Yahoo.com and I read an article about the latest news with the divorce of Tiger Woods.  He got divorced a while ago for cheating LIKE CRAZY on his beautiful wife with many other women.

Note:  Add and I already did a podcast about Tiger Woods and what happened with his wife.  Here is the Tiger Woods podcast

Anyway, his wife found out about the cheating and obviously wanted to leave him.  Tiger Woods is obviously a very rich and famous golfer.  It’s no surprise that he has A LOT of money.

Cheating on your wife or husband is clearly a very bad thing to do (I think in any culture) but it’s an interesting topic because cheating is handled very differently all over the world.  I wanted to have a little discussion here about this, teach some English, and get your thoughts and cultural opinions.

I don’t know all the laws in all western countries, but in Canada and the US, getting divorced is expensive!  If you are the rich person, getting divorced can often cost you at least half of your money and assets.  The reason for the divorce doesn’t even matter.  If you are a rich guy and your wife cheats on you, she still gets half of your money.  It sounds crazy, but it’s true.  It’s the same if a man did that to a woman.  (Mini English lesson:  Cheating on your wife or husband is called having an “extra marital affair”)  Sometimes people just use the word “affair” to make it simpler.  Anyway, that’s what it means.

Do you think that is fair and reasonable?  How does it work in your country?  Should couples split money 50/50 for ANY reason in a divorce?

As many of you know from our podcasts, my girlfriend is from Seoul Korea.  We were talking about this and she told me something that shocked me.  She said that cheating on your husband or wife is illegal in South Korea.  If you get caught doing it, it’s possible you go to jail for up to 2 years.  I just read the same thing online.  (I should believe her more when we talk.  It’s my habit to always look up facts on the internet)  I actually think it’s an interesting law.  It’s new to me, but I think it makes sense. 2 years is a long time, but cheating is really horrible and it destroys families.  It’s a difficult question.  What do you guys think?  How is this handled in your country?  Any Koreans reading this want to comment?  We’d love to hear from you!  (And from everyone around the world too of course.)

Ok….. Back to Tiger Woods and his ex.  She got a HUGE divorce settlement.  (A “settlement” in this case means a lot of money, or a lot of stuff with value, things like houses, cars, etc)  It’s what the divorce courts “settled” or agreed upon.  That’s why it’s called a”settlement”.

Tiger cheated on her, so it’s certainly fair that she should get a lot of his stuff, but it’s quite amazing how much she got.  Do you think this is fair and reasonable?  Maybe it is, I just want to hear your honest opinions.  She’s one rich lady.  She got about $100 million USD in the settlement!

Love to hear your thoughts on all this guys!  (By the way, I read your comments from the last article and am working on a good lesson to teach those words and phrases.  Thanks for all the support!)

Here is the Yahoo article I was reading.  You can see photos of the house she’s getting.

Again, here is the Tiger Woods Divorce Podcast if you are interested and haven’t heard it yet.

As I’ve mentioned before, Add and I are working our asses off (Working super hard) on making a sick (awesome) course for

learning American pronunciation.

Add recently improved the design of that site and we’re doing our best to make the world’s best accent training course.  2013 is no joke here at the 232!  We’re also getting into videos for our upcoming learning English site.  Subscribe to our English learning Youtube channel to make sure you don’t miss any new videos when they come out.  There will be some awesome ones soon!

Since we’re going to be making tons of different kinds of videos, I’ve been playing around a lot on Youtube.  I do this partly because it’s fun and I like to waste time, partly to see the kind of competition we’re going to face, and partly to get some cool different video ideas.

In this sense, “playing around” can be used for “surfing” the internet.  I’ve noticed a lot of non native speakers ALWAYS say they are surfing the internet.  If you want to be more native, mix it up.  Sometimes say “surfing”, sometimes say “playing around”, and sometimes say “goofing around”.  They all mean the same thing in this context.  Here are 3 examples.  Use them all from time to time.

1.  I spent all afternoon surfing the internet.

2.  I spent all afternoon playing around on the internet.

3.  I spent all afternoon goofing around on the internet.

…..Anyway, I came across one absolutely hilarious English learning video.  It was made in Japan.  Now PLEASE understand that I honestly love going to Japan and I don’t want to make fun of them or any culture at all.  I just think this video is hilarious.  I’d love for some of our Japanese fans to explain what this might be.  Is it for fun?  Is it serious?  I really don’t get it, but it’s definitely fun to watch.  One thing I do appreciate is that it seems that the Japanese can have fun.  For some reason, westerners would never make this because they are too self conscious and worried about what other people think.  I respect that Japan seems to have this ability to be playful and have fun as adults.  All cultures have their unique parts.

(***Please also understand, that I totally realize I have no idea if this is normal or common in Japan or not.  That’s why I’d really like to hear some opinions from real Japanese people AND people from other cultures too on the video below)

This type of video certainly makes us feel more confident that our Accent training course will be a great bonus for everyone.  The Japanese accent is super cute, don’t get me wrong, it’s just always interesting when you hear non native speakers teaching any language.  It would be like if I tried to teach Westerners how to speak perfect Chinese.  I can speak it, but it’s better to let a Chinese person teach you.  A LOT better!

Don’t forget, our Accent Course will be FREE for any VIP members.  It’s going to be $47 USD for all other people.

If you are interested in the course we are making, getting the VIP membership now (On the Apple or Android App is ok too) would be a great idea since you will get everything for a year PLUS the free accent course!  (Please don’t write about this all over the internet because we’re going to sell the accent course for $47 USD to people who have never heard of this website.  Again, here is the Accent course ONLY you guys will get for free with a VIP membership.

Please watch the video below and comment on it.  I’d love to hear what you guys think.  Say anything at all.  Keep the comments coming and I’ll keep blogging!

Get the VIP Membership now so you can be sure to get the FREE accent course!  You won’t regret it!

Ok, so most people didn’t like the last video in my last blog.  Fair enough.

I appreciate your honesty and I’ll be careful when recommending that kind of thing in the future.  Sometimes learning what you guys don’t like is as important as learning what you do like.  For us to do the best job in the world of teaching you guys, we need to understand you at a deeper level.  I think this blog, and your comments, is helping this process a lot.

As you guys know, Add and I are Canadians living in Shanghai.

Shanghai is a pretty international city and we see interesting stuff here all the time.  There are tons of white people in the city.  When we see other Canadians or Americans and speak with them for just a few minutes, we know almost exactly what kind of people they are.  They know the same about us too.  It’s easy to “size up” or develop a pretty accurate idea about someone who comes from your own culture.

I can tell if they went to university or not, I can tell if they had a lot of friends in high school, I can even guess how they behave in a club.  Of course I won’t be right all the time, but I’ll have a pretty good idea if these are people from my culture.

I assume you feel the same way when you meet someone from your own culture in a new place.  If you were travelling in New York City, for example, and met a person from your own country, I guess you could quickly make some very good guesses about this person after only a few minutes of talking.   You will know if they are funny, shy, confident, arrogant, etc.  You’ll probably be able to guess if they grew up in a big city or a small town in the countryside.   This is because everyone has a deep understanding of their own culture and how people from their cultures should behave, and usually do behave in most situations.

It gets interesting when people from 2 totally different cultures meet for the first time.  It takes A LOT longer for each person to fully understand what kind of person are they meeting when they are from “different worlds”.  In our minds we may have questions like, “Do all Canadians act this way, or is this person just weird?”  The same could be said for people from any culture.  You get the idea.

This reality can be difficult and frustrating for Add and I with this website.  We want you guys to really know us and who we are as people, but it’s hard because we’re all from different places.  We totally understand this too.  We believe you should be skeptical when you see people you don’t really know trying to sell you stuff.

When we say that we have the best VIP program, or are teaching the most commonly used native slang on the internet, or we say we’ll make your English WAY better than it would be using any other method, how would you really know 100% for sure if we are telling the truth?  It’s easy for us to praise our own website because it’s our website, but is what we’re saying really true?  How would you know?

The only way I can think of that would help you, is for you to ask other native speakers what they HONESTLY think.  They will know immediately.  It makes me sick to see so many English teaching websites on the internet that totally suck.  They sound like they would teach useful stuff, but they really don’t.  How do I know this?  Because I’m a native speaker and I can see what they are teaching.  It drives me crazy!

I’m sure you’ve had many similar experiences.  Many Asian girls often see western guys choosing ugly Asian girlfriends and walking hand in hand all over the city.  They always ask me why this happens.  Do the western people have bad taste?  Do they have different taste?  What is going on?  There are millions of examples of people making weird choices when they are “outside” of their own culture.  It’s hard for each of us to really know the truth about who is who and what is what.  So if you have any doubts about anything in terms of learning English or how western culture really is, ask a real westerner you know in your own life and trust.  If you don’t know any, I guess you’ll just have to take your best guess and do whatever feels right.

I’m not suggesting that you just believe everything I say just because I said it.  I would hate that.  I just hope you think about it for yourself.  I totally believe that you should try out every English learning method or website that seems good to you.  You should use what YOU like and what works for YOU.  Use whatever gets you the best results.  Just please be careful when choosing.  Most language schools and websites teach the stuff THEY THINK you want to learn.  They really don’t care about making your English level better.  They just want you to use their program.  You should judge us and our website in the same way.  Choose what’s best for you.  Just be careful.  This is important for YOU.

I’d love to hear your thoughts as always.  Your comments are fantastic!  Keep writing guys.  Keep letting us know what you think and what kinds of stuff you want to learn.

I’d also like to know what you think about this idea of people from different cultures having a very hard time really trusting and understanding each other.  Do you have this experience?

My favourite thing about this blog is getting to read your truly international opinions in the comment section below each post.  I was just thinking that almost every website in the world targets native speakers in their own languages.   Most language learning websites I’ve seen teach at such a basic level, therefore making the topics or comments not very interesting at all.  This is a special situation and it’s truly because of you guys.  Think about it for a minute.

So I really want to thank everyone for making this blog “come alive”.  To make this section even more interesting, please write where you are from and include some basic information about yourself when you make a comment.  Let’s get to know and understand each other more.  You might want to say your country, your job, your age…  Anything.  If you don’t want to, that’s totally fine too obviously.  Also, I really want to thank everyone for being respectful of each other when writing comments.  It’s great to see that we can all share different thoughts and opinions without being judged.  That’s really awesome guys!

Ok… So here is another topic where I know we are going to see some very different opinions…

The topic is “Gay Marriage”.

Legalizing gay marriage is getting more and more common in the Western world.  I believe it’s legal in Canada and it’s legal in certain parts of the US as well.  (Same with some parts of Europe and probably other places too, I’m just not sure where)

Some people think gay marriage is totally wrong.  Some people think that if 2 people really love each other, then why stop them.  Some people think that gay people should be allowed to live together, but not get “married” since the traditional definition (meaning) of marriage is between a man and a woman.  Some people think all gay people are going to Hell.  The opinions on this topic are so incredibly different.

Anyway, the fact is that it’s becoming more and more common.  I don’t think this trend will stop either.  As societies get richer and open up, they become more accepting to new concepts and ideas.  They become less traditional.

Did you know that less than 100 years ago, black men were not allowed to play golf in the US?  That’s how racist it was in those days.  If anyone said that black people shouldn’t be allowed on golf courses in 2012, they would sound like the most uneducated fool in the world.  Society has come a long way and it still has a long way to go.

I’d love to hear where you are from and what you think about gay marriage.  Do you think gay men and women should be allowed to get married?  Why or why not?

Do you think they should be allowed to adopt a child if they can prove to be good parents?

Do most young people in your country have the same views as you?  Are the views slowly changing in your country?

Do you think gay people should be totally accepted by society like completely “normal” people?  Why or why not?

Really looking forward to your comments!