Friday, March 14, 2008

Atah meiveen?*

or
At meiveenah?**

Those of you in Israel, correct me if that's way off. The big kids and I are using a CD I found at the library to try to learn Hebrew, but unfortunately, that leaves me guessing at how the heck to spell things using the English alphabet.

How funny would that be if I screw up the title asking if you understand!

Today, the boy announced, "Bah-Bux." I've heard him say it many times and previously, I knew exactly what it meant, but for some reason, today, I couldn't figure out what he was saying.

Luckily, he is not an only child. I was able to ask his biggest sister to translate and she did (she speaks TheBoyish far more fluently than we do). We learned that trick years ago. That was one of the wonderful things about having twins. When we couldn't understand one, we asked the other and she would translate. The rare exceptions often involved a 2-year-old Girl2 with a very puzzled expression on her face, her hands out to her side (in that "I don't know" motion), her head shaking sideways to indicate, "No," and the announcement, "I do not know," in her sweet little voice. We used to joke that she was a cyborg because don't, can't, won't and the like were all absent from her vocabulary.

So, now, take your best guess. Do you speak Toddler-eese? What do you think Bah-Bux translates to in English?


I'll come back after Shabbat and post the whole story behind it. Until then, take your best guess. FTR, Bah-Bux is an English word.



*"Do you understand?" in Hebrew
**Feminine form of the same question

3 comments:

Robin said...

Transliterating is always confusing, but I did in fact understand what you were saying :). As for bah-bux, no idea. The best I can come up with is firetrucks and I'm pretty sure that's wrong.

Unknown said...

Now I'm going to have bah-bux on the brain trying to figure out what it is. I think firetrucks is a great guess!

BTW, I was just reading your explanation for the name of your blog. I have wondered a million times how military personnel can come home from war and pretend that the daily grind, the mediocrity of daily life, taking out the garbage and shopping for groceries has anything to do with real life. How can one care about such pettiness when that person was recently concerned with staying alive and keeping others alive. I think most Americans have no perspective on this, and lack the respect needed for those who do understand it.

Phyllis Sommer said...

ha! i understood:-) but i read the next post right away so i got the bahbux translation in advance...oh well:-)