Me: I saw you playing with Fernanda; was it a bit hard since she only speaks Spanish?
Her: I speak Spanish.
Me: I see.
Her: But we spoke Polish. Fernanda and me speak Polish.
Me: Really?
Her: Yes, I speak a lot of languages. I speak French and English and Irish and Spanish and Polish and German and Greek and Dutch and Flemish and Italian and Tagalog and Flatten.
Me: Flatten?
Her: Yes, Flatten.
Me: Latin?
Her: Yes, Flatten.
Later
Princess is frantically waving her hands in the air.
Me: What’s wrong sweetheart?
Her: There’s a fly and I’m afraid it’s going to pique the bejaysus out of me.
That’s English and French and Irish all in the same sentence.
Later Still.
Princess holds out to me a freebie book of Dutch fairytales we have been given in the chemist with our prescription (the chemist guessed our linguistic group and missed): Read it to me while I do a poo. [I love this job].
Me: But I hardly speak any Dutch, sweetheart.
Her: Read it to me in English.
Me: But it’s in Dutch.
Her: But Daddy read it in French.
Me: But Daddy is able to translate fairy tales from Dutch to French on the hoof but I am not because I don’t really speak any Dutch.
Pause.
Her: I speak Dutch.
Me: OK, but you can’t read.
Her: You read it to me in Dutch.
Me: Er was eens een weduwe die twee docters had…
Her: Keep going.
Me: Are you enjoying this?
Her: Yes, I speak Dutch.
She gets her stubborn streak from her father.
This oh so made me laugh out loud. I can just picture you reading the book in the toilet and her having to put up with the Dutch or back down – and never backing down (ever ever).
Another one for the book.
Oh – and Tagalog?
My father used to tell me that he could read almost any language, simply he couldn’t understand what he read. He must have attended the same school as your Princess.
Hey, I speak Flatten, as well!
Isn’t Tagalog the language used in the Philippines? Maybe Princess could help Pog get her money back.
Ik houd van de prinses. Bejaysus!
That would certainly speed things up – could you ask The Princess to do the honours for me, waf’ ?
I like to think she also has inherited her stubborn streak from her aunt too. For cv purposes it is called determination!!!
Thank you GPM.
Pog, BroLo, she may be co-ordinating the scam, she seems to have a lot of new stuff recently…
Letter B, ik ook.
Peggy, Chinese??
Sibling, oh that’s what it is, is it?
fabulous. please put all of these into a book.