Yesterday Bea came out with a sentence that combined three languages, and one I have not heard of yet. I asked her to repeat something I had told her because I wanted to make sure she had understood. I had told her that her friend’s driver (yes, people have such things her, we don’t, but lots of others do) was going to come to the house, collect all three of them and take them to their friend’s house.
“What did I say?” I asked
“Han ska bringa nous,” she replied.
The first two words are Swedish, meaning he will, the third word is the English word ‘bring’ with a Swedish flavour and nous is French.
She sounded charming, and I was thrilled to hear that these languages are sinking in. But what happens when she meets someone who doesn’t speak Swenglishfrench?
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009
The same as when my friends and I meet someone who doesn’t speak germenglish with additionnal polishfrench, they understand 3/4 of what we say 😉
but I hope Bea will manage to separate the 3 languages 😉
They will probably pretend they know what she said, to look smart.
From my friends whith polyglot children, it seems to only be a problem in the beginning – with childcare and baby sitters. Later on, they do it to just be annoying 🙂
How very clever of her! I often wish that I could speak a few different languages in the way that a lot of Europeans do, but think I’d become very confused. Sometimes find it hard to think of the right word in my one language!
Hopefully one should be able to get buy with a smatteriong of Norwegian.