saying thank-you

I’ve always had a fascination with languages. It’s awesome to be able to communicate with people in their native languages.
Just over three years back, when I was still hospitalised, I grew so bored I decided to learn how to say ‘thank-you’ in as many languages as possible.
And now, I can say ‘thank-you’ in…
(1) English: it IS my mother language, after all. XD
(2) Cantonese: I was born in hong kong; lived the first 3.5 years of my life there. The confusing thing about Cantonese is that there’s one thank-you for ‘thank-you for giving me something’ and another thank-you for ‘thank-you for doing something for me’. When I was younger, this confused me no end, and I’d usually just blurt out both thank-yous whenever the occasion required it. :P
(3) Japanese: I studied Japanese for the last year of primary school and for the whole five years of high school. My Japanese teacher was so incredibly pissed with me after I e-mailed him declaring my 99.9% sure intention to study Japanese, then let the 0.01% win by studying Chinese. :P
(4) Chinese: I studied mandarin for one semester @ uni with madam hippo before my brain injury. Now, my entire chinese vocab consists of the numbers one to ten, ‘hello’, ‘thank-you’ ‘I don’t know’ and ‘your mum’s fat’. :P
(5) French: I studied French for one semester back in year eight, but I hated it, sorry. See, there were boy words and girl words and the second half of most the words were usually silent. It drove me insane! Funnily enough, my French teacher came to visit me in hospital once, and asked me, “Emily, do you remember any French @ all? Coz I only taught you for six months before you refused to study French anymore.”
“yes, miss,” I replied, “in French, I can still count from one to ten, say ‘hello, ‘thank-you’, ‘I don’t know’ and the f-word.”
An offended gasp. “I never taught you how to swear!” exclaimed my French teacher.
“relax, miss,” I told her, “you didn’t. but one day, you gave us some work to complete with dictionaries, and the moment you stepped outta the classroom, a classmate opened his dictionary, then said to everyone else, “oi, if you wanna learn how to swear it’s on like page 123 (or sth).”
“tell me who taught you.” Demanded my offended/shocked teacher.
I raise a hand. “sorry, miss,” I apologise, grinning, “on my honour as a former Canterbury student, I can’t.” XD
(6) german: one of my physios when I was hospitalised was german. I prolly also learnt to say ‘danke’ (thank-you in german) from watching countless episodes of inspector rex with the parents on SBS.
(7) Korean: one of the trainee nurses in hospital was Korean.
(8) Spanish: another of my physios in hospital was Spanish. Actually, her name was micky, and I took great pleasure in calling her “mrs. Mouse.” :P but lol, she’s partially forgotten me since I was released from the hospital; the last time she saw me, she said, “hello, emma!” (my name’s Emily, BTW. :P)
(9) indian: one of my former carers was from India. Are all indian females vegetarian? But woah, can they take SPICY food! One afternoon, when I was munching my afternoon tea, she was having hers too, and offered me some. She was having rice bubbles mixed with all these spices. I tried one teaspoonful, and BANG! My mouth BURTS into flames! “I can’t eat spicy food!” I squeak @ her. Dad comes downstairs and offers her one teaspoonful of our lee kum kee asian style chilli sauce. She puts it into her mouth, swallows, then asks, “umm … why isn’t it hot?”me: *facepalm* XD
(10) Algerian: one of the guys who fed us breakfast, morning tea and lunch was from algeria! His name was habib; dunno why I thought his name was abu. “thank-you, abu, thank-you, abu!” I’d say every morning. One day, he stopped making his rounds, and in his rough, low, gravely voice said one short word:”habib.” His name wasn’t abu, it was habib! “eep, I’m so , so sorry! I squeaked @ him. “I promise I’ll never forget your name again!” XD
(11) somalian: this one I only learnt new today! There’s this agency called kyabra, and they have this homework club, which is aimed for students from African countries. They have volunteer tutors helping the kids out
(12) thai: I’ve got a friend from primary school, Kristen grassick. She’s a lovely girl, tall and beautiful – prolly coz she’s half Australian and half-thai! Anyways, one day, mother and I met her and her great-aunt (meaning, kristen’s mum’s aunt) @ the sunnybank plaza foodcourt, and she taught me how to say thank-you in thai! It’s almost as confusing as cantonese, coz we’ve got the ‘thank-you for giving me sth’ and the ‘thank-you for doing sth for me’, but in thai, there’s a different thank-you for boys and girls! I’m not sure whether it’s a different thank-you said by the girls then a different thank-you said by the boys, but anyhow, it’s just confusing! XD
next post here … should be toms afternoon, coz we’re gonna WIN the final state of origin tonight! Righteo, cya then!
Cheers,
Em. ^^