Friday, May 8, 2009

Bi-lingual?

By rights, I really should be bi-lingual. My father is Dutch and still speaks Dutch with my Oma and other rellies. I loved studying Indonesian at school (Selamat datang!) and would enjoy taking up the challenge again. (At least it is cheap to visit Indonesia and get some practical application of the language). I have Chinese (Mandarin) speaking family members who would be chuffed if someone else in the family could join the convo.

But, alas, I am not fluent in anything but Australian-English. My favourite Dutch word is “lakker”, always directed at the deliciously guilt-ridden butter-cookies my Oma makes. It means “yum”, lol. Probably a good thing she lives 500km away.

However, there is hope!

Miss Chooken appears to be taking a shine to Spanish! And we all know how much in demand that is in Australia :s

I can not take the credit however. It is all because of this girl. Thank you Dora!

Unfortunately, Miss Chooken also has a very good imagination and now believes she can put an “ico” or “aa” sound on the end of any English word and insist it is Spanish.

We may need to also work on eliminating some Aussie slang. A recent conversation went something like this:

(Miss Chooken is walking our pet dog Zam, I am walking with Miss Sunshine to the park).

“Mum, stop a minute.”

(I turn to look at what caused the tenth stop in the 50 meters we have travelled from our front door).

Pet dog is having a squat in the road verge. Then Miss Chooken pipes up a very serious look on her face:

“Mum, Zam is doing a piss. That’s Spanish for wee”.

Oh, sooo wrong. Oh, sooo funny.

Anyone for early English tutoring?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh so lovely and innocent.Testing the boundaries and like a sponge so eager to learn and absorb knowledge.If only we could be like that forever.Regards Mama

Chubby Chieque said...

Naivity as to speak but cute...

Anyways, am a bit bi-lingual and it's funny and helpful in any ways.

Am from The Philippines living in Sweden, isn't that funny? Yeah, I speak 13 filipino dialects fluently. Japanese & french were the subjects I took while am in the university as I studied Bachelor of Tourism Mgt. Ha ha... I used to speak jap but after awhile living in EU and not using it, I forgot but not all, though. I speak swedish, norwegian & danish. I speak English but it's rusty §:-)as well as spanish.
Thai & bahasa where Indo & Malay language isn't hard due our historical came from this country.

Ahhh... take the chance, girl... & enjoy!

The House That A-M Built said...

Oh yes we went through a Dora stage. My brother married a Spanish girl so all his kids LOVE Dora! Don't they come out with the sweetest things. My little one is learning to read and write. He loves writing his own books. I don't know how many times a day I hear, "how do you spell.....?
One day we will miss their sweet little conversation. So enjoy every moment with your precious girls. A-M xx