Well Sir, There’s Nothing On Earth Quite Like A Genuine Bona Fide Electrified Two-Car Monorail!

Met up with my Chinese friend Frank for a coffee at Starbucks this afternoon, and showed him the photos of my first year in New Zealand, teaching him odds and ends of English as went. When we got to my time in Sydney, I explained what the English word for the following picture was…


…Monorail.

Me: "You see – ‘mono’ means ‘one,’ and ‘rail’ means ‘rail.’ Monorail. What’s it called?"
Frank: "Monorail."
Me: "What’d I say?"
Frank: "Monorail."
Me: "Yes, that’s right – monorail!"

We immediately practiced this with some repetition.

Me: "Monorail."
Frank: "Monorail."
Me: "Monorail."
Frank: "Monorail."

Afterwards I showed the same photos to Lionel in hospital, but I skipped the whole monorail monologue. I figured it was really more of a Frank idea…