Miss Africa 2018: Miss Congo hair catch fire plus oda tins wey happun for dis year eventI always love it when I realize I can read another language. They are of course close variants of languages I know: I can read English, so with some practice at sounding it out I realized I could read Middle English with very little work. I can read French, so it wasn't too hard to learn to get the sense of Spanish -- but I was really pleased to realize that I could kind of work out some Romanian, which is a Romance language in spite of the relatively large distance. (Portuguese was harder than Spanish, easier than Romanian. Of course idiomatic expressions will catch you in all of these cases.)
...Di event almost turn sometin else wen di new queen her hair catch fire as she bin dey do her celebration waka but some organizers behind di scene don come out say na wig she bin dey wear.
Di fire start afta fire works wey dem no do well fall for her hair.
So add Pidgin to the list. It's fun.
Ooday Youday eakspay igpay atinlay?
ReplyDeleteOne of my Romanian sons, who did not like to do work, passed Spanish 1 & 2 mostly by learning the Spanish endings and putting them on Romanian words. Even after the teachers caught on, they weren't too disapproving. Functionality is supposed to be the point.
ReplyDeleteHearing the language is a different problem, though--that gets a lot more idiomatic and loaded with non-latin-based words, and with shortcuts, and the speed is terrifying. Generally by the time I figured out what the other person in the group had said, my opportunity to reply had long flitted. I don't think I'm going to be appointed ambassador to France anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteYes, that’s true. It’s surprisingly different discipline, hearing versus reading. I can read a number of languages, but I really can’t converse in any but English. I’d need a lot more practice hearing the sounds, and of course then you’ve got to remember how to formulate a verbal reply.
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