It's really cool and adorable to watch my son learn #english and #icelandic at the same time.
To set the stage, "hvað" is the icelandic interrogative pronoun for "what".
The phrase of choice the last couple days is "hvað happened?" (as he makes the appropriate gesture with his hands).
Friends that raised children in an english/icelandic household told me of similar things and it's really cute to see first hand.
@jamesrobb I speak Arabic and English, and for years growing up we spoke a kind of “Arabish” at home, with whatever word in whatever language hit the tongue first coming out first.
In college, my roommate once asked if I wanted him to leave the room when I called my parents because I kept switching languages… This confused me, and that’s when I learned that not everyone grows up with multiple languages!
@samerfarha very cool!
Are there some words you think English is desperately missing when trying to express yourself?
@jamesrobb generally don’t think so, but Arabic has more reliance on the the use of context to figure out meaning.
An example is hummus, which means both the dip and the garbanzo. You’d add an adjective to it to make the meaning clear but everyone just drops it.
That said, there is one Arabic word “dakhem” (ضخم) which means “enormous” or “huge” but can be used to indicate a big threatening thing. Like “that SUV is huge” doesn’t convey the same threat.
jamesrobb
Samer Farha