Well, language study is going well and just like those who've gone before me, I've found that sometimes what you think you are saying and what you are actually saying are two very different things!
For example this past week I was cleaning the whiteboard and said that it was 'salty'! I thought that I was saying that it was 'very dirty'! Let me explain, the word for
Dirty is 'sal' and
Salt is 'sèl'
Salty is 'sale'
Very dirty is simply 'tre sal' or 'sal anpil'
I thought that as 'sal' was dirty 'sale' surely must be 'very dirty'? But I was proven otherwise!
Then there was the time I mispronounced the word I was reading and asked for an explanation, which took about 5 minutes only to discover I'd mispronounced it and so therefore needed a new explanation - which thankfully only took a few seconds!
Chofe - To heat
Chofè - Driver
And then the one I actually took notes on because it was late at night and I had been studying all day and was tired and just started laughing because it struck me as hilarious!
Here is the background to the conversation: the book said that the little boy ate bread and drank 'akasan' before going to school. Frantzdy (my Creole helper) tried to explain this 'akasan' to me - it is a hot drink made from corn, with sugar, milk and kanèl (oh! what was that again? something like seasoning/spices...explanation involved kanèl being sweet and it was the bark that was used - ahhhhh! CINNAMON!). To describe it he then branched off into telling me about a drink that was good for when you were working out. It had to do with putting spaghetti in a blender and getting a liquid.
The conversation:
Me: If you put spaghetti in a blender you get liquid!?! What? LOL! No way...
Frantzdy: (Very patient with his little white friend who is tired and obviously doesn't know any better) You have a blender...
Me: Yes, ok, I understand - I just don't believe that if you stick spaghetti in a blender you'll get liquid!
Frantzdy: There is a lot you don't know!
Uncontrollable laughter! I do wonder what Dave and Marilyn sitting outside their room reading quietly must've thought?
Frantzdy: Ok...how do you make spaghetti?
Me: Um, I put it in water, and boil it, and then use a seive (word I'd just learned :D) and drain it, and then put it on a plate and eat it with sauce.
It's only then that he tells me that one boils the spaghetti first (now maybe you had realized that but it was late and I'd had a loooong day!)
Me: Boil it first....right, ok, NOW you tell me!
Frantzdy: With water and cinnamon and salt. Then you put it in the blender, with just a little bit of the water, some milk, and sugar, after that if you want - put in a little bit of ice; and you blend it (this still didn't sound very plausible to me and I was repeating everything after him in English to make sure I was getting it and was almost rolling on the floor laughing). If you want to get strong while you're working out - you can also add the 'ze' of a chicken. (He was speaking completely in Creole but I'm translating it :D Aren't I nice?)
Me: What? What part of the chicken are you sticking in this thing? 'Zye'?!?
Frantzdy: No, no, no, not 'zye' - 'ze'!
Me: LOL! Ok, ok, an EGG of a chicken not it's EYES! (whew! was about to be grossed out.)
Frantzdy: and a banana or breadfruit is good too. After that you blend it and after that you drink it.
Me: Bwe li? (Drink it?) Vremont? (Truly?/Seriously?) *not too enthralled facial expression* Men si ou pa kuit ze ou ka gen salmonella. (But if you don't cook eggs you can get salmonella)l.
Frantzdy: ?
Me: Salmonella? Sa se malad ou ka gen si ou pa kuit e ou manje zye...ZE! (It's a disease you get if you don't cook and you eat eyes...eggs!!!
We about died laughing!
Hoping these anecdotes are not a 'guess you had to be there' and you can laugh with me!
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