{"id":936,"date":"2012-09-24T13:21:39","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T11:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=936"},"modified":"2012-10-22T09:44:49","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T07:44:49","slug":"good-day-i-have-butter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=936","title":{"rendered":"Good Day, I Have Butter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"and<\/a>We are eating at a meat restaurant in \u010cesk\u00fd Krumlov, the historic town where a year ago my brother and I convinced vampires to get into a picture with us sans pantaloons (see: Pantless in Krulmov, Aug 25, 2011). This time, I am here with my sister and my friend S. A current ban on spirits in the Czech Republic pretty much guarantees remaining in pants, as does the fact that I\u2019m with my sister and not my brother.<\/p>\n

My sister has an interest in languages; she speaks French, some Italian and got one of the highest scores on the city Latin test when she was in high school. So she\u2019s observant and questioning about pronunciation, grammar and vocab. S has just moved here to teach ESL so he is fully interested in this linguistic discussion. Trying out a question for the waiter, my sister announces to the table: Dobr\u00fd den, m\u00e1m m\u00e1slo = Good day, I have butter.<\/p>\n

I erupt into laughter and when I translate they join in with hearty guffaws. When the waiter comes, we do not present him with our edict.<\/p>\n

Thirty minutes later we are standing in our pension room and the woman who owns it is showing us around. I am speaking with her and this is what happens:<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, mluvi\u0161 \u010cesk\u00fd?\u201d Oh, you speak Czech? <\/em>She looks impressed.<\/p>\n

I experience a paralysis brought on by several issues: I want to be honest, I want to impress my friends and this woman, I don\u2019t want to eat crow after the butter incident, and I don\u2019t want to look like a schmuck who has lived in a country for eight years without learning the language fluently. I try somewhere in the middle. \u201cJo\u2026?\u201d Yes\u2026?<\/em><\/p>\n

And from this interaction and my confident answer she foolishly opines that I am able to speak Czech. So, now she\u2019s speaking Czech to me and I am trying my best not to spontaneously combust.<\/p>\n

After a moment, I find what most other second language speakers find when forced to converse: I am not dying. I am actually following the woman\u2019s discourse and answering questions. I engage her in a somewhat natural conversation instead of muttering broken Czech phrases at her shoes. Spontaneous combustion has not yet occurred.<\/p>\n

And then, just when my confidence is becoming real, I call her a whore.<\/p>\n

I have written in this blog about the sneaky propensity of language to trick you into saying embarrassing things. And every language has it. The languages I know surely do, as evidenced by things I have heard students utter in English (i.e.: I am so horny today! <\/em>= I am so happy today<\/em>!*) and things I have recently said in Czech (Wow, you are a whore <\/em>= Wow, that is weird<\/em>).<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the thing with language: you have to make mistakes. It\u2019s the only way to improve. Anyone who has studied a foreign language knows this in theory, but it is a different story when you\u2019re inadvertently questioning the sexual morals of the woman who is giving you a room for the night.<\/p>\n

Still, as long as the listener and the speaker accept it with good-natured humor, then the mistake will probably end up teaching the speaker something useful. For example, I will never forget that while divn\u00fd<\/em> is used when something strikes you as weird, d\u011bvka<\/em> is used for a woman who probably offers her sexual wares to everyone but you.<\/p>\n

In any case, it’s all fine in the end. Well, as long as I have butter, that is.<\/p>\n

* Modern R&B\u2019s fault. The influx of American movies and music to the Czech Republic have made teaching ESL more difficult and often awkward. Especially if students have listened to any Gangsta rap or watched a Quentin Tarantino film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are eating at a meat restaurant in \u010cesk\u00fd Krumlov, the historic town where a year ago my brother and I convinced vampires to get into a picture with us sans pantaloons (see: Pantless in Krulmov, Aug 25, 2011). This time, I am here with my sister and my friend S. A current ban on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-f6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":985,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}