Life: Idiotropic

Language is a common topic of discussion here with so many different nationalities speaking so many languages and Americans here trying to keep up by learning a smattering of this and a smidgen of that.

My family is no exception. Kirk speaks German well. I speak Spanish decently and then a bit of German and a very small amount of French and Dutch. Tiara's learning French. Arianna, Luci, and Elise are learning German.

You've probably heard about Nixon's famous donut speech where he said, ""Ich bin ein Berliner" meaning, I'm a jelly-filled donut, instead of saying "Ich bin Berliner" which is what he meant to say. If I were to tell someone here that "Ich bin ein Amerikaner," I'd be telling them that I am a sugar covered donut - not to say that all nationalities have a corresponding donut in Germany, but for Berliner and Amerikaner - yes, you can be from Berlin and from America, or, if you say it wrong, you can be a tasty treat.

Anyway... those kinds of language issues pop up all the time here and they can be embarrassing and funny. Here are a few:

• When Elise is being cranky, Tante Tinny calls her a "kleine hexe," meaning "little witch." She says it good-heartedly enough. Luci didn't know the word "hexe," but knows kleine and grosse (meaning small and large), so the other day when Tinny called Elise a "kleine hexe," Luci immediately called Tante Tinny a "grosse hexe!"
  

• When we were in Austria, Arianna was having a snow ball fight with a German speaking Austrian girl. Arianna kept yelling, "missed me, missed me!" The little girls kept getting mad. Poor Arianna had no idea that "mist" in German means manure. No wonder they don't sell Sierra Mist in Germany!

• My Spanish friend, Maria, tried using German when she first ordered fish at the market here. So, she said, "Ich moechte sechs..." If you are saying the number six in German, it looks like sechs, but is pronounced "zex." A lot of Spanish see the "s" in the front and pronounce it like an "s" instead of a "z," so when my friend said that "I would like sex fish," the fish people started laughing at her. The number 12 is not funny sounding, but it's hard to say, so Maria only orders now in sevens and thirteens!