HAHAHAHA This made me laugh .. Never heard of a ven in my life.

And we use ventilator to describe a machine used in hospitals to help people breath which they are attached to through a pipe.

A ventilator is just about anything that moves air. Anyway, I had some discussion with some people (ake the rest of the teachers) about the ven/fan thing, and I stand corrected. After a long debate, the conclusion was that fan is also correct in this case But I still ruined the joke

Now, give me another joke to mess up!!!

No - you didn´t ruin the joke - because the joke was correct and you were wrong!! ...but it´s really good of all you teachers to conclude that we native English speakers know how to speak our own language!

That must be a great relief!

I have two mother tongues and none I speak correct.   Probably Russians will laugh at my Russian, and Kazakhs at my Kazakh.

Polish would sometimes correct me (at forums, when they run out of arguments).

English, they are very tolerant. They never ever criticized my English.

Excuse me, I know I was wrong, but please don´t state that all native English speakers know how to speak English properly That line just made laugh harder than the fan-joke

Lemon - I can´t comment of your Kazakh or Russian, but your Polish is just brilliant. I mean your written Polish because I have never heard you speak it And I agree that English speakers are most forgiving when it comes to others torturing their language. As long as you´re being understood, you´ll hear your English is good

BM - I don´t think any native speaker would have trouble naming common things. True, some natives tend to make grammar or spelling mistakes but hardly ever are they wrong when it comes to naming objects

I was actually referring to Insallah, Sonunda and myself with that comment - we native English speakers - and wondered why you couldn´t take our word for the fact that you were wrong without a ´long debate´.   As DD says, it´s true many native English speakers grammar is pretty hopeless but I truly believe most of them would recognise a huge metal fan when they see one!  Good to know I made you laugh though.

Thank you dear

I actually feel that Polish became my first language.

I have a huge complex when it comes to languages.   There is always someone who has a better knowledge.

Actually this joke became funnier than it was thanks to the English Teacher.   I am your fan ET.

The English only criticize other English speaking people....especially Bed Amerikans!!  I guess Bed Amerikan is not concidered a foreign language to them??

I don´t remember it being a long debate actually... I said "wrong spelling", somebody said "why?", I said why I thought so, and they told me I was wrong. I checked, I was wrong, and I said sorry Big whoop! Turns out ven is a Dutch (or perhaps even a local) abbreviation. I guess the long debate thing came from other people laughing at me for being wrong. Don´t care that much actually, everybody gets something wrong once in a while. At least I admit it This one isn´t has bad as the time I made a horrible dyslectic/nervous mistake during my first ever official English class. I spelled tomatoes wrong on the blackboard... ARGH!