Shengliver’s Note: The English language has been functioning as a lingua franca in this global village. Knowing the language enables the knower to communicate with earthmen from a different culture. The number of English learners has witnessed leaps and bounds the world over. Nowhere else in the world is the figure greater than in China. Nothing is wrong with learning a foreign language. It is a personal endeavour. If you like it, you do it. If you go about it the right way, you learn it better. Things, however, are more complicated than that in China. ELL, on this ancient land, is being abused and misused, politicised and demonised. Recently one of my epals, Mr Farmer, has been commenting on learning and teaching English in China in his Chinese blog. Some of his opinions should be heeded. Money cannot buy us quick fixes and we do not learn English to beat foreign devils. This entry, first written in 2007 for April Fool’s Day, is intended as a joke. Do not send in any money and do not send in any mail. If you like, LOL.

Are you a learner of the English language in China? Are you troubled by the crazy language and its crazier pronunciation and intonation? Are you keen to acquire the London accent in a month? If you have answered three YESES, come over and join a growing number of zealous learners all over China in experiencing our newly-developed AF English Mouth!!!

Our team, which consists of linguists, physiologists, IT engineers and material scientists, has been toiling day and night in the past decade to develop this AF English Mouth.

Before we started off the project, we had conducted a survey of Chinese learners of English all over the country, from Beijing to Shanghai, from Mohe to Haikou, and from Zhejiang to Xinjiang. The findings revealed that a new learning gadget would be in great demand here in this country. 98% of the people surveyed agreed that none of the present teaching or learning methods and methodologies available in PRC is not expensive, inefficient and stupid, be it Crazy English or Sane English, New Oriental or Old Oriental. They all wished to have such a gadget as could assist them in their efforts to learn to speak English the English way or rather the Londonish way, quickly. They felt they spoke with a thick Chinese accent even after they had learned the language ever since kindergarten. “The Chinalised accent is stupid, stupid, stupid,” they exclaimed.

Hence our product.

Our linguists analysed English sounds meticulously, and they found none of them exists in the Chinese speech system. Some sounds in both languages are similar in some way, but the subtle differences would betray a Chinese speaker of English the moment he opens his mouth and starts talking. Our physiologists put the Chinese mouth and the English-speaking organ side by side, and they found there were fundamental differences between the two. The Chinese can’t speak the Londonish way simply because a Beijing mouth differs from its London counterpart.

Crazy English offers kind of a solution—they guarantee to train your oral muscles the English way in their adverts. Their slogan, “English Muscles in three months!”, sounds appealing, but to be honest their solution is no solution at all. After burning your cash, you still end up with the stupid drudgery of repeating, repeating and repeating English sounds, straining your Chinese speaking organs all along. It is uncomfortable, unnatural and painful. It feels as if your lips, your teeth and your tongue were fighting a war among themselves. How many Chinese learners have succeeded by following their methods? Virtually none.

After the research, our physiologists and our IT experts collaborated closely with each other. The physiologists provided the IT experts with data about the dissimilarities between the two mouths. Then the computer engineers put the statistics into a computing system, which in turn automatically produced a model in the 3D format on the monitor on the basis of the data. Actually, this model would precisely fit the oral cavity of a typical Londoner. Next, if you would like to learn a word, say “English”, you touch a button on the screen and the Model moves exactly the way a Londoner moves his mouth when articulating this word.

Well, that is just the first step of our R&D. What followed cost our corporation an arm and a leg, which explains why our product may appear a bit expensive to the readers for the present. Our material scientists spent countless days and nights trying to pinpoint a perfect material which would be used to turn the virtual 3D model into a tangible product. The final product would have to be soft and flexible. It would have to fit a human mouth seamlessly. After tons of trial and error, the material scientists put several wonder ingredients together, one of which was mined from a crater on the moon thanks to China’s Luna Exploration Program, and finally came up with a magical synthetic material for our model.

Our production line was put into operation after all the above steps had been taken. With a computer in command of the workshop, the perfect synthesised material was turned magically into the AF English Mouth, the product we are now proudly able to offer to you, linguaphiles here in China!

How is the Mouth used? Couldn’t be simpler. You needn’t spend hours and hours modelling yourself after the sounds any more. Every evening, after dinner, before you go to bed, it is the best time to use the product. Each workout should take a quarter, it is recommended. You put the English Mouth into your mouth and flick on the smart mini-computer that goes with it. On the computer monitor, choose any English sounds, words, sentences or even long passages and then, click on them. The EM will gracefully take your mouth along with its movements and the desired sounds are produced perfectly by YOUR MOUTH. It is accurate, and your Chinese mouth will in time be transformed into an English one.

Think about it, buddy! The cutting edge of our EM is that the process of turning a Chinese mouth into an English one is effortless, fast, accurate and automatic. If applied in the right way and regularly, it may help you replicate the London accent in no more than 30 days. 30 days! Think about it!! Compared with the current costly yet ineffective methods circulating among learners of English in China, it is just the blink of an eye.

We do not have a large stock of the English Mouth for now. It will be quite some time before more of the right material can be synthesised, because we are running short of the element originating from the moon. Action now, and you will be lucky enough to be one of the first users of the EM, a gadget which is to revolutionise English language learning and teaching in China.

To contact the General Manager, dial 0974 7563932. When you hear the through tone, press 0. The system will connect you with Shengliver, the man behind the miraculous gadget, AF English Mouth.