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“Cool”

I want to share how we usually use the word “cool” because I’ve heard many non-native speakers use it differently.

First of all, “cool” is not a word you would use to describe yourself because it sounds too arrogant. For example, it really sounds like you are too proud of yourself to say, “I am a cool guy”. It’s not cool to say that.

We also don’t usually tell people directly that we think they are cool. For example, I wouldn’t tell my friend, “You are really cool”. If I’m talking to someone else about my friend I might say, “My friend Chris is a really cool guy”. But I wouldn’t tell Chris that. I’m not sure exactly why we do this but its almost always done this way.

We also don’t usually tell people that they look cool. If I thought someone was wearing really cool sunglasses, I might say, “Hey, those are really cool sunglasses. Where did you get those?” I wouldn’t say, “You look cool in those sunglasses”. Some other common sentences are, “That’s a really cool bar.” “This apartment is really cool”. “That was a really cool movie”.

Please share your thoughts and give me some topic ideas.

Thanks

Andrew

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Learning and Improving English, Grammar and Word Usage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to ““Cool””

  1. Meng Zhang Says:
    July 31st, 2007 at 4:01 pm

    I love this your blog very much, here i can learn a lot of american way of thinking and that really do me a lot of goods. I appreciate your website.

    Thanks for your great job.

    A guy from North of China.
    Meng

  2. Angelina Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    This is very cool to know, I thought I can express myself well but certainly still not native in a cultural sense, you should write more stuff like this!
    Thanks for the lesson!

  3. Stacy Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 2:50 pm

    Wow, Andrew, thank you for the detailed explanation of “cool”…After learning this, I think I won’t make such mistake in future. :)

  4. Shandy Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 9:58 am

    Andrew,It is really a cool article.I appreciate your nice help here ..

  5. vann Says:
    August 6th, 2007 at 9:58 am

    Who are you andrew?????

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    August 15th, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    Your website is really great and I enjoy your articles on this blog, too. A lot of stuff one can never find out about in ESL textbooks. Thanks a lot for your wonderful work.

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