take me and the ship

One Swenglish structure I've failed at correcting for more than a year is the taunt
-You can't take me.

What he means is clearly the taunting dare:
-You can't get me.

Like in the words of Mik Jagger: "And I try, and I try and I try, and I try"

Today, however, a unique event occurred. For once, I corrected X's Swedish. Swedish has two "genders" for its nouns. They either are an "Ett" or an "En" verb. That's the form of both the indefinite and definite articles. There's no rhyme or reason to remember which one is which.

Skepp (ship) is "ett". However, X was playing with a friend's Lego ship calling it "skeppen" when it should be "skeppet".

I felt so scholarly.

Where they tank

The hubby and kids took a walk in the rain to the fire station. X described the route they took. And for this neither language is developed enough to express that they took a road which ran parallel to the big road.

To help him describe such a complex thought he tried to use other landmarks.

-You know, the place where they tank.

-You mean the gas station?

-Yeah, the gas station.

church berries

Our cherry tree is currently doing its best to develop and ripen its second season of church berries. Well, that's what X calls them.

In Swedish it's called "körsbär" which sounds like "shurshbear". However if you misunderstand the pronunciation in Swedish, as a child can, it sounds like "shirksbear" (kyrksbär), which directly translated becomes: church berry.

Our Church Berry tree commemorates a number of memorable life's moments:

1. The birth of X
   
2. The birth of K
3. 10 years of marriage
4. Our new home

We have a lot riding on that tree. Not a bad thing if it inspires some divine protection.

how loud can you count?

X was counting in Swedish this morning up in the "twenties." He clearly hasn't fully mastered the "twenties" as I heard him saying the equivalent of "twenty sixteen" and other twenty-teens. As we haven't worked much on our 20s yet in English I thought I'd do a spot check to see how high he could count in English. So I asked him:

--How high can you count?

He considered the question a second and started off from ONE in English speaking VERY loudly. I quickly shushed him realizing that he'd literally translated the question and tried to speak as loudly as he could. The word "high" when modifying speech indicates volume level. I've made the error in Swedish a number of times asking Swedish children how "loud" they could count. They normally look at me as if I were nuts. Children are intuitive that way.

i'm drunk

Much of what I notice from X's language is of course the Swenglish constructions and usages while speaking English but it certainly reverses.

Today at dinner at Farmor's X announced he didn't want another serving saying:
--Jag är full. (I am "full")

Full in Swedish is the colloquial usage of expressing the state of inebriation. So his Swedish statement is literally translated: "I am drunk."

Some of his other mix ups with the two languages --with their being so similar-- can go unnoticed. The other day we were talking in English but used the Swedish word "snaps" which is pronounced much like the German ""schopps" meaning a shot of alcohol. X spoke up determined to be part of the adult conversation and declared:

--Girls aren't as interested in "snaps" (pronounced in an American accent /snops/) as boys are.

I tried hard to contain my laughter and realized that the hubby didn't really "get" what he was referring to. The hubby had only thought that girls weren't as interested in throwing back a shot of spiced alcohol as boys --a statement he probably fully agrees with from experience.

I pointed out that X was not referring to "snaps" but "snoppar" --the child-friendly and euphemistic nomenclature for a boy's "willy."

church berries

We have a cherry tree in our yard which the hubby gave me the day we took K home as a gift for a slew of events: K's birth, X's birth, 10 year anniversary and our new home. It's an important tree.

Today we were checking out its spring return and X saw the picture of the cherries on the tag.

--What are inside those church berries?
--There are seeds inside the cherries.

We tried hard to contain our gleeful enjoyment of the Swenglish name for the fruit. Church berries. Might have to become the family word. We already have adopted Cruzzle Puzzle for crossword puzzle.

X also has a hard time with new names he's never heard. We sent him over the compost pile to the neighbor's to play. The younger's name is Ludvig. X is still calling him Luddig. That means lint-y in Swedish.

what's a snike?

Being a native English speaker needs qualification of "Which English". X was watching a nature program on snakes from Down Under (OZ).

He turned to me and asked:

"What's a snike?"