Bon Matin

French for good morning, of course. But also the name of my Iranian room mate.

Matin is here to learn English and isn't happy with the fact no one told him how difficult it was.

After I told him that I was a qualified TEFL teacher, he has now started referring to me as "teacher". As in "Good morning, Teacher. How are you this morning?"

Unfortunately, he has started to hold me personally responsible for all the quirks and pitfalls in the English language. I didn't invent it.

Also, he has caught on that Westerners are quite fond of casual effing and jeffing whilst in conversation.

And so:

"What is with this mother fargin' past continuous tense? It's so fargin' confusing. I say to fargin' teacher we do not have this tense fargin' tense in Persian language. Can you fargin' explain to me why the farg we need this fargin' tense. And what is with these fargin' silent letters? Kanniggut? What is a fargin' kanniggut?"

I understand his frustration. Sometimes when a foreign speaker asks why something is the way it is, all we can say is "it just is I'm sorry".

He is good bloke who seems to spending most of his time trying to understand the difference between "I have been doing my homework" and "I did my homework".

Of course, Matin didn't do his homework because he didn't "fargin' understand it".