My son, doing homework: "what's eggplant?"
Me: "baigan"
Son: "Eeeew, hate it."
It reminded me of the first time I went to the UK when I was about 11. No-one spoke my language! And all along, I thought I had been speaking English! We use so many words here that are Arabic, Hindi, or whatever, with French grammar. "it makin' hot!"
I love it.
This website was invented many years ago, when the author kept coming across interesting things in pockets whilst doing laundry. Like small, terrified reptiles. Blogging about raising children in the rainforest, moving them to the UK and watching them leave home one by one to have their own adventures has gradually been replaced by a return to grownup life for their mother, Nan Sheppard, who is an anthropologist, writer and public international law consultant.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
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2 comments:
And then there's the great American English. Even my American-born and raised kids are struggling with the horrors.
I can relate to this too. In our small expat community overseas, we mixed in French and Arabic words with our English, and now that I'm in an all-English place I sometimes can't think of the right word!
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