What is this?

QU'EST-CE QUE C'EST? ***WHAT IS THIS?***CHTO ETO?

Welcome to At the Ruins (by Shirley B. Trew), the generic phrasebook-cum-novel introduced by the dear Professor Emeritus Jacques Roundabout in the blog at-the-ruins.blogspot.com.

Here, the Conventional/Traditional novel form is used, just the way Charles Dickens's work (originally a 19th. c. blog of the era) is now packaged in fat books.

Read Professor Roundabout's Foreword, then plunge into the phrasebook novel. Uh, novel phrasebook.

Just read Post #1, then Post #2, and so on. At the bottom of each page, CLICK OLDER POSTS. Don't worry, you'll catch on eventually.

Contact me at sbtrew@gmail.com

P.S. THE FOREWORD SETS UP THE PREMISE; YA GOTTA READ IT.


FOREWORD, by Professor Jacques Roundabout


Often, people travel in pairs. One has common sense, the other speaks a little of the language. One is obsessed with maps, the other with native costumes. One is into photography, the other, shopping. One keeps an eye out for food, the other, ruins.

Here, finally, is the perfect travel phrasebook for both of them.

The problem with so many well-intentioned travelers' phrasebooks is that they're written in two languages, when in fact travelers most often find themselves juggling three or four at least as they seek stimulation and adventure around the world, and directions on how to find a bathroom.

But hardly anybody can handle three or four languages, and most Americans can't even handle two.

Besides, when the natives offer to sell you things, ask you questions, or even give you directions, they speak in their own language, with their own accents, and at normal speed. So even if your phrasebook has all the answers in it, everything will happen too fast for you to be able to translate and understand what they've said.

This first generic phrasebook skips over the frustration and gets right to the essence of your travel experience.

At long last, here is a traveler's phrasebook that translates all the phrases that you are likely to use, need, or hear into one language--good old American English. For the first time, you can finally grasp the essence of your travel experience.

Bon voyage! Oops--Good Trip!

J.R., Timbuktu

Wednesday, September 26, 2012


POST #32—LANGUAGE SCHOOL PLUS

We went to a three-day language school in (famous city).
We went to a week-long language school in (famous alternative city).

We went to a three-week language school in (more famous alternative city).
We went to a six-week language course at (famous university) in (famous alternative city).

You're a tourist?
         We're studying the language.
You're studying the language?
         We know the language.
We're working in the Peace Corps.
We're working for a non-profit helping the natives.
We're anthropologists.
We're making a documentary.
We're from (network).
We're from the CIA.

Have you been to XYZ? We go every year.
         I've been there seventeen times.
         I've been there so many times I couldn't count them all.
How long were you in XYZ?
         We were there for longer than I can remember.
         We were there for so long we forgot our English.

We've been here so long that our servants can't believe it when we tell them we're Americans.
Posted by at