Word of the Day

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Já jedím

I really enjoy talking to the neighbors' children, whose ages range from 3 to 6, one of the reasons being I like to pay attention to their use of Czech to see how their language proficiency is faring and what mistakes they make. Czech kids have a much better command of language than their Brazilian peers, many (most?) of whom talk funny until they start school (and some of them even after that). Yesterday, talking to a 3-year-old neighbor kid, I said oni jedí (they eat) and a few seconds later she came up with já jedím (I eat, correctly: já jím). It makes sense: if oni mluví (they speak) and já mluvím (I speak), oni zdobí (they decorate) and já zdobím (i decorate, then oni jedí, já jedím) My wife thinks I threw her off because she may be more accustomed to nonstandard oni jí.

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