Blathers
Comments Off Can You Say That in Afrikaans, Too?
So, my sister passed the Nursing Boards recently, and now she’s back in school for language competency courses that require her to understand American English, Cockney, Irish, Aussie-speak, and just maybe Klingon, too. Since I have a relatively decent background at being interviewer (I did hiring and firing at the old think tank; I do the same for the present job), she figured I’d be the best person to practice her interview-answering skills on. Cut to an hour after when I’ve exhausted what little I know of interview questions and have decided to just go wing it:
“If you could be a fruit, what would you be?”
My sister gives me an incredulous look. I try to be helpful and say, “At this point, you should say you want to be a grape.”
“Because it’s cute?”
“Because it’s an antioxidant, you numbskull, and thus, useful to the rest of humanity.”
“Do you really want to be a grape?”
I thought about it for a bit. Be small, round, and purple? Not such a good idea, I decided, and so I dropped a more language-related question.
“Hoe koop ek goudstawe?”
“What does that even mean?”
“How do I buy gold bars?” I pronounce self-importantly, only to be whacked soundly in the head by a plump pillow.
My sister doesn’t appreciate what I do; I really think this. Hey, she needs to be linguistically proficient, and the last time I checked, Afrikaans was still considered a language, not gibberish. If she doesn’t make the cut, that won’t be because I failed to help, I tell you.

Here we are getting our lafang on. Photo unrelated to the post, of course.