Quote:
Originally Posted by YuriTokoro
Hi.
Could you correct my English?
"My Aunt"
My Aunt went to the Philippines for sightseeing. It was her first trip outside Japan. She lives in the country and had never seen people from other countries. Also, she doesn’t speak English.
She saw a young shop assistant at a souvenir store in the Philippine airport.
My aunt told me that the assistant liked my aunt. The assistant said that her mother was much like me.
"She wanted to exchange letters with me, but I didn’t like her because she called me ‘Mama-san’ too much. I felt as if I was a bar hostess." Many people call a female bar manager ‘Mama-san’ in Japan.
Now, my aunt seems to have two problems. One of them is a prejudice against bar hostesses. This problem is common in elderly people who live in the country. I believe that they should not be prejudiced. They believe that a bar hostess has low status.
Another problem is misunderstanding people who speak in broken Japanese. It’s obvious that the shop assistant didn’t call my aunt ‘a bar hostess’. Her words were meant to show great affection, but my aunt didn’t understand the assistant's difficulties speaking in a foreign language.
She was angry and I was sorry to hear her story. Listening to her, I thought we really need to study other languages to have empathy for foreigners who speak to us in Japanese.
Thank you.
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I can understand the assistant's point of view. From looking at the two of you, she came to the conclusion that your aunt, being older, is most likely a mother or at least deserving of the status we should give to older people in society. As your post stated, it's hard to overcome the ideas one has grown up with and held true for decades. It's possible, but never a complete process.
As for the post composition itself, I see a lot of improvement and increased skill in writing English naturally. There are some sentences that go on too long that need to separated into two or more sentences depending on the flow of words and ideas.
The one problem I have with the post is with the quote from your aunt. It's confusing in tone, and the way it's written makes it appear that you are paraphrasing what your aunt said instead of what she actually did say. As a result, it's confusing and not immediately obvious where I should put the quote marks or change the text itself.