Some Language treasures...

here are some of my favorite bangla treasures...

when your throat is sore you say, "My throat is broken"

if there is a lot of tension/disagreement in a village or town, then you'd say, "The weather is hot" there.

oh, i love it.

actually, i think my new favorite word is "khawa" it means to eat - but you eat all sorts of things in this language....

• if you just need to get some fresh air then you say, "i'm going to eat some air"
• if you run into something then you say that you "ate a push"
• you eat medicine, if you drink something then you say you ate it.
• you can eat someone's job (if you get them fired)
• you don't get shot, you "eat a bullet"
  
  

there are so many great uses for khawa - really its wonderful.

Sometimes when sheila and i are speaking to one another in bangla we taunt each other. i say things like, "i'm going to punch you" (ya know, just practicing conjugating different verbs!). the other day in class i asked how to say, "you're funny looking" the phrase i was given is directly translated as, "When i look at sheila, then i laugh." so today we were sitting in the "living room" of the school and i was looking at my flash cards and came across that one, so i said it out loud. one of the teachers said that he doesn't laugh when he looks at sheila...and then went onto say, "but when i hear you speak bangla then i laugh"

oh i love it. i love that he's teasing me in bangla. that he's taunting me in bangla. (and that i undestand it) so i decided to teach him the English phrase, "talking smack."

seemed like a fair trade to me.