20 Oct. 2010
Okay or O que? I never realized how much I use the English word “okay” until now where when I say okay, they think I’m saying “o que?” Imagine walking around the US and responding with “what” for so many things!
“Here’s the broom.” “What.”
“You can eat the banana.” “What”
“Would you like some tea?” “What.”
“It’s time to take a bath.” “What.”
I can only imagine what my family is thinking: “Does she not understand anything?” “Her Portuguese sucks and it’s been 5 weeks here!” “Americans must not know anything!” “Where is her common sense?”
Onto my actual learning and using of Portuguese…it is coming along. As time goes by, I’m able to have more actual conversations with my family besides for the, “Good day. How are you? I’m good, thanks.” We’ve talked about some differences and similarities between Mozambique and America, about AIDS (some), theft (in Mozambique and in America), what we are scared of (me= big spiders, mama= frogs), about my family at home some, that I don’t want kids of my own (they have a difficult time understanding this concept…but we laugh every time they bring it up), and what I’m going to do after these 2 years. They are definitely patient and that helps a lot because they’ll repeat many times or explain something in a new way.
I have definitely made them laugh heartily because of something I have said or done in regards to language. I still don’t really know why on some, but I will laugh with them also. Sometimes I realize it right after I said it…For instance, I call my mom here mama, which is the endearing term to call your mom here. But, the word for boob is mama (accent on the first syllable). It’s hard to be sure to say mom versus boob…
Also, coco (accent on first syllable) is coconut and coco (accent on second syllable) is poop. But make sure you don’t say you like to eat poop!
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