Have you ever seen the movie Singing in the Rain? If you haven't, it should definitely be moved to the top of your must see list. If you have, you know that it is basically an hour and a half of non-stop laughter. One of my favorite parts of the film is when they debut the first talking movie "The Dueling Cavalier" and the sounds and the picture get out of sync. Lena Lamont shakes her head and Don Lockwood's voice says deeply "Yes, Yes, Yes!" Then it switches, Don nods his head and Lena's high pitched voice says "No, No, No!!" It's hilarious - you should watch it.
Anyway, that basically explains my predicament in Prague on multiple occasions. At least when my brain got confused that is. In Czech, the word for "yes" is ano and the word for "no" is ne (pronounced neh). I'm sure you can see how this might get confusing. To further complicate matters, sometimes when Czechs start to talk quickly, especially on the telephone, they abbreviate ano to no, so no, no, no actually means yes, yes, yes.
Thankfully, I now live somewhere where yes is yes and no is no. Now, if they would just call a cookie a cookie . . .
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
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3 comments:
We found Greece equally confusing! Yes was pronounced "neh" but no was "oh-hee" which sounds an awful lot like OK. Languages are so interesting!
-Sarah H.
In that case, Hungarian is much easier. LOL
No = Nem
Yes = Igen
I wasn't there long enough to learn the language very well, but I still remember a few key phrases, like "good dog" = "jo kutya." :)
Love this movie! If it makes you feel any better, I still call a cookie a cookie...
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