The Maple Leaf Rag

Hi gang! I put up a new (smaller) video, hot off the camcorder.Check it out on my profile page. Click on the weird looking guy (me) at the top of the page.  It's pretty cheesy but I hope you have some fun with it. The words that I use in the video are here: 

 Eddie the rat got whacked last night. Shot through the mouth, some other wiseguy shot him, did some spring cleaning and went on the lam. I knew there was a contact out on him, he was always cranked up. A real liability. You eat alone, you get clipped. Turns out he wasn't packin' so the message job woulda been easy. Ah, the outfit is better off without that rat anyway. They say he got pinched coupla years ago doin' some shylockin' and turned over. Some wiseguy, huh?

Check it out. Let me know if it turns your crank or not. Next time? Hmmm...who knows? 

Since I've joined Ebaby, I've had the chance to talk to a pretty good number of people. I'm not sure of how many  but I've spoken to quite a few using microphones on msn or yahoo.  The point of this blog is to tell you all how really good you are when you speak English!

First, let me tell you about my 'control' group. I work in a huge box store here in Canada. I design and sell kitchens and I get to meet people from all over the world. Toronto is the most culturally diverse city in the world so my customers are very different in their countries of origin. The people I have spoken to on Ebaby speak just as well or better than almost every customer that I talk to at work. Of course I mean customers who have a discernible accent, not the native English customers I deal with. 

Besides my customers, I have co-workers from many different countries as well. These are people who work here in Canada, earning a living and enjoying the multitude of benefits that Canada has to offer.  I know that you might think this is a stretch of the truth but everyone I have talked to from Ebaby speaks as well and quite often better than many of my  co-workers. 

My last control group is my neighbours here in Scarborough, which is part of Toronto. The man who lives across the street has been in Canada for probably 50 years. When we have a conversation, I can only understand about 20% of what he says. The lady who lives two doors down is a bit better, maybe 75% of what she says I can understand. She has been in Canada for 40 years or more. I could go on and give more examples but I think you get my point.

You're better than you think you are!

I wasn't really sure what to write about today but I had some time and thought I would comment on the one and only Ebaby video lesson I've seen. Ok, I should look at more to figure out if they are better than the one I saw but, after seeing one, I'm not sure I want to see any more. 

It seems there is a bit of a soap opera going on in the videos. Two people meet and talk, usually while the other person is talking, and discuss the 'hot dog' girl. The story wasn't bad but the audio and video quality was pretty dismal. I am a native English speaker and I had trouble understanding what was going on. The girl usually spoke at the same time as the guy but because his voice was louder, he completely drowned her out. I know there are subtitles at the bottom of the video but they are not complete and we missed some of what she said. 

Are these people reading from a script or is this all ad lib? Ad lib means made up on the spot. I think that a major site such as this should spend a bit more time and create a better video product for their viewers.

These are things that I found disturbing in the video:
1. the audio was so poor that much of the dialogue was impossible to understand.

2. a lot of what the girl said was not written in the subtitles at the bottom of the video screen.

3. the video was dark and we could not get a good view of the speakers face to see what either of them were saying. A simple two camera shoot would have been better.

What do you think? Am I off-base by criticizing the video? Do you find the videos help you? Let me know.