Day 2 - Language
Words
Coming from two different countries and cultures didn't have to be an impediment to fall in love. On one hand, Lars was born and raised in the Netherlands, and on the other hand, Mei was born and raised in Taiwan.
At first they had lots of misunderstandings and culture shocks. Sometimes she said or did things he wouldn't do, or it was him who had strange habitudes in her opinion. But little by little both of them got used to the habitudes of the other one, and soon they even adopted them as their own.
It was Lars' idea to learn each other's language; Mei accepted immediately. After all they already knew some common words and phrases. But it wasn't as easy as they thought. There were sounds they couldn't understand, like the sound of the letters 'w' and 'r'. They took it as a funny experience; they laughed every time they mispronounced a word and ended up saying nonsense.
She was always ready to teach him spicy words, and learning the ones in his language, but he felt embarrassed. He was used to hear her curse in Mandarin, but now that he knew the real meaning of those words, he felt uneasy.
"Is this for real?" she asked while she read an article about Dutch language. "I can't believe you have a word for that. It is useful?" she asked him with a naughty smile.
He blushed. He had completely forgotten about it. Even he didn't know where that word came from and if someone actually used it.
The writing was harder for him because sometimes he couldn't find the sense of some characters and he read them one by one or he mixed them up. Fortunately, they put a note on every single object in the house with its name in both Dutch and Mandarin Chinese.
In spite of all that, this was an amazing experience. They listened to their favorite songs, and watched lots of movies and TV shows together. Sometimes they sent little notes and letters to each other, or she texted him in Dutch and he replied in Mandarin Chinese.
When they went out on walks, they pointed at every single thing they saw and name it. Everything has a new name now. Bloem - 花 (huā), appel - 苹果 (pín guǒ), huis - 房子 (fáng zi), liefde - 爱 (ài).
It was wonderful how they were connecting each other's world to create a new one, and how that linguistic barrier wasn't there anymore.
"Ik hou van jou, mijn konijntje" she said, kissing him.
"我知道，乖，我也愛你" he said, kissing her back.
Notes: Bloem - 花 (huā) = flower, appel - 苹果 (pín guǒ) = apple, huis - 房子 (fáng zi) = house, liefde - 爱 (ài) = love.
Ik hou van jou, mijn konijntje = I love you, my bunny
我知道，乖，我也愛你 (Wǒ zhīdào, guāi, wǒ yě ài nǐ) = I know, hey, I love you too.
The word they are talking about is "swaffelen".
I apologize if some words aren't well written. Like them, I'm still learning some words in both languages.