Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Foreign preschool children

The weatherman swears on a stack of holy bibles and his mother's grave and his boyscout honor that starting at the end of this week, it will be sunny.  For like, a while.  If he is lying, I will track him down and give him such a pinch.  SUCH A PINCH.

Because isn't it weird how weather forecasters always take personal credit for good weather?  Like they are weather gods, rather than weather-guessers?  What's pathetic is that the weather they take credit for in Seattle isn't even all that good.  Mr. A.  noted a forecast from a couple weeks ago in which the weatherman bragged that it actually might not rain and "if anything, it would just be like it was spitting on you."  Really?  Just like being spat upon?  My, that is something to look forward to.  Thank you, weatherman.

Are you tired of talking about the weather?  Seriously, this is nothing, I could go on all day.  (Ask anyone.  I'm a super interesting conversationalist!) But okay, fine, new topic.

These days we spend a lot of time filling Soren in on what the animals say.  Have you ever noticed how many things it's possible for the same animal to say? Like, I felt very confident explaining that chicks say "peep peep," until I heard Mr. A. telling him that they say "cheep cheep," which I have to admit is more accurate.  I think we can all agree that ducks quack, but what about birds?  I mean, you can say that they tweet or whatever, but what Soren is mostly spotting are crows saying "AAAAAAAAAAAK AAAAAAAAAK."  And don't even get me started on all of the different things dogs can say, it's hopeless.

I learened all the barnyard animal sounds in French 101, but the only one I remember is the French duck, which says "coin coin."  It actually sounds almost exactly like "quack quack" if you leave off the last hard k sound.  This website concurs, but it also claims that English elephants say "baraag," so maybe the whole thing is an elaborate joke designed to make foreign preschool children feel foolish.

2 comments:

Brandy said...

We have a copy of The Noisy Counting Book, in which One Big Frog Said "Ga-Dunk!" Husband and I scratched our heads. "Maybe it's Canadian?" he asked. "Or some other country, where frogs don't ribbit but 'ga-dunk' instead?" So he looked up the authors, and it turns out they hail from that wacky foreign land of Massachusetts. Like, my home state. Where I have never heard a frog say "ga-dunk."

But maybe I'm just not listening closely.

Unknown said...

In Japan, cats say "nyao"