We've been in London visiting Daughter 2 and family, taking with us Big Grandson so that he could ride around on London's transport. No accounting for tastes... . Anyway, he and Mr Life did this on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. On Sunday, we all went to the Post Office Museum (which includes a post-train ride), and on Monday and Tuesday I looked after Littlest Granddaughter while her parents worked.
We had a busy time. She tried five times to teach me how to assemble her toy aeroplane. I got better at it, but never entirely succeeded without help - there must be about fifteen bits. She's 6 and I'm 73. I'm not mechanically minded. I confess I wasn't really trying at the beginning, but started to concentrate once I realised that I was probably going to have to keep doing it till I succeeded. It turned out that even my full concentration wasn't enough.
And now we're home and it's amaryllis time again, and today was beautiful and I got some gardening done, hurray.
I'm learning things I didn't know about American English through Duolingo, which requires one to translate from the French and German which I'm brushing up. It marks one wrong when one doesn't guess what it wants one to say. For example, when I translated from its French, "I didn't wash before work because I got up late", it wanted me to say, "I didn't wash up before work because I woke up late." Do you really say this, Americans? Here, washing up refers to doing the dishes. And it doesn't allow you to say "football" when it wants "soccer" (I mean, "fussball", Duolingo!), and objects to your saying "in my break" when it wants "on my break". It's interesting, though, if a bit frustrating.
I'd try some Scottish English on it (we say, for example, "amn't" as in "I'm right, amn't I?") but you only get five mistakes ("mistakes") and then you have to buy more credit, so I don't think I will... . English people would say "aren't I?", which sounds odd to me. We don't say, "I are", after all. How about Americans? Australians? New Zealanders? Are you of the "aren't I?" persuasion.
I would never say "wash up" except to do dishes. I would probably say I didn't shower or bathe before work...(you know I'm a bather already) We do use "on my break" and "aren't I" though. However, much of American English is also regional and varies widely between states and areas. Pacific Northwest English differs from the Southern variety.
ReplyDeleteI have always thought 'amn't I' to be more logical than 'aren't I', though I use the latter. I don't like the way Americanisms creep into British English. I hope we never reach the point of saying, 'Do you got?'
ReplyDeleteI believe Germans normally use spülen (or abspülen) when referring to dishes rather than waschen, although spülen more generally means rinse. I think idiomatic German would usually have an object - such as 'Ich habe mich nicht gewaschen' which would make it clear what didn't get washed. What was the German phrase that it asked you to translate?
ReplyDeleteI think it was French - "se laver". The problem wasn't that I didn't understand it - it meant washing oneself. But Duo insisted that I translate this as "wash up".
DeleteI'm from New Zealand and I think we'd say 'having a shower' or just 'showering' to refer to personal hygiene and definitely 'doing the dishes' or 'doing the washing up' to refer to kitchen work. Unfortunately many people use just an upward inflection to simplify 'aren't I?' or even an 'aye?' - grunting will be next in the downward spiral!
ReplyDeleteI was amused at your inability to keep up with a 6 year old's construction skills. I'd have the same trouble. Fortunately the advanced Lego constructions done here these days just require my very occasional help - mainly calming the distress when younger sister has knocked the construction table. Calmness, provision of biscuits and drinks and then helping find the page to backtrack to is all I need to provide.
A has somehow got through almost 20 years with me without noticing that I say "amn't I" until he pointed it out as one of the six year old's "cute grammatical errors" and I had to put him right.
ReplyDeleteIt's all education... One also says "I amn't" but maybe more often "I'm not".
DeleteThat is a curious phrase, isn't it? Gramatically, I believe you might be more correct, but here we do say "aren't I". We learn so much more about our own language when we begin to learn another! I had NEVER realized how many words we have that are spelled exactly the same, may be related in meaning, and may or may NOT be pronounced the same! Lead, lead, read, read... and so very many more. I'm helping 3 little ones now learn to speak, read, and write and it can certainly be frustrating! English is the beans to learn, and then throw in all the different interations of it around the world and we have a real mess!
ReplyDelete"May be more correct"?? Not sure how you'd justify "aren't I", grammatically!
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