We discover interesting things every day about the culture here through discussions with our language helper, Abraham. For example, politeness works differently. “Please” and “thank you” are used, but not in the same way as we would use them or at the same time. If you give someone something, they may thank you at the time, but they will make absolutely sure the following day to say, “Thank you for yesterday!” (When we forget to do so, they must think us very ungrateful.)
There was another example that came up in a sentence Marc had written in his “homework”. He wrote that he had asked the tailor to make him some clothes. Abraham said, “No, that's the verb 'to ask', you want to say 'I told the tailor to make me some clothes'”, with the implication that since the tailor's job is to make clothes and he obviously wants custom, you don't need to ask him to do it, you can just tell him to!
On a completely different subject, Marc commented the other day that the weather means we now feel further from Europe than we did a few months ago. In the European summer, when temperatures were in the 30s there, it didn't seem that strange to be living in the heat here. But now that Europe is heading into winter, our cloudless skies and hot sunshine do make it hard for us to believe that it is November!
There was another example that came up in a sentence Marc had written in his “homework”. He wrote that he had asked the tailor to make him some clothes. Abraham said, “No, that's the verb 'to ask', you want to say 'I told the tailor to make me some clothes'”, with the implication that since the tailor's job is to make clothes and he obviously wants custom, you don't need to ask him to do it, you can just tell him to!
On a completely different subject, Marc commented the other day that the weather means we now feel further from Europe than we did a few months ago. In the European summer, when temperatures were in the 30s there, it didn't seem that strange to be living in the heat here. But now that Europe is heading into winter, our cloudless skies and hot sunshine do make it hard for us to believe that it is November!
1 comment:
gee thanks for the jealousy making comments about your hotness!
interesting bit about the language and telling someone to do something - maybe I should adopt into English ;-)
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