"No, Ziva. You don't stick an 'e' on the end of that," Amelia explained patiently to her Israeli friend who was about to triumphantly set down a tile that would put her in the lead.
Ziva gave her a confused look, as did Francisca.
"But is that not how you spell 'manner'? It is feminine, right?"
Francisca nodded her agreement. Amelia resisted the urge to groan. Explaining how to spell things to the older Spanish woman was never fun.
"English does not have genders, remember?" Liu butted in with a superior look on her face.
Ziva glared at her, Amelia shivered but Liu was unfazed. She supposed that the young girl was used to being glared at at this point, but still! That glare of Ziva's promised pain.
"No, no, no. Ziva is right. It ends in 'a' in Spanish though," said Francisca, wagging a finger at Amelia.
"It also only has one 'n' in Spanish," Amelia pointed out, leaning out of reach of the finger and shook her head. "Either way, Liu is right. English doesn't use genders. Thank God."
Ziva muttered something under her breath but returned her 'e' tile to her rack.
"It doesn't make sense not to have a gender," she complained, annoyed that she had been blocked from getting double points.
"I'm pretty sure most languages don't have genders," Amelia retorted with a frown, unable to actually think of one at the moment.
The American school system really only focused on the romance languages or German, none of which helped the point she was trying to make. Seriously, how was neuter a gender?
"Arabic does," Amina volunteered with an unhelpful grin.
Ziva nodded vigorously and added, "As does Hebrew."
Amelia gaped at them.
"But they're not European languages," she complained.
Ziva snorted and fluttered her hands at the table.
"European languages don't have the monopoly on gender. A lot of languages do."
"Oh yeah? Prove it," Liu challenged, arms crossed.
Amelia smiled gratefully at her. At least someone was on her side and making sense. Even if it was just to put off coming in last place. The student was off her game tonight.
Ziva raised an eyebrow before answering, "Just of the ones that I am fluent in? Eight. Only Turkish and English do not."
There was a "Ha!" heavily implied there.
"That many?" Amina asked, impressed.
"Aren't most of the languages you speak romance languages?" Amelia asked, racking her memory for the answer.
"Only three of them. Hardly a majority," Ziva answered dismissively and narrowed her eyes. "Why?"
Amelia gave her an exasperated look. Only three? Sheesh, Amelia barely knew two languages (did high school Spanish even count?) and Ziva just said "only three" like it was nothing! She supposed for someone who was fluent in ten languages and conversational in God knows how many more, knowing three languages really was nothing.
"It would have been an unfair distribution," she answered with a pout.
Ziva just smirked at her and patted her on the arm in mock sympathy.
"How do you even remember what is what?" Amelia complained. "And how can something like "manner" be feminine anyway?"
"You just learn it," Ziva said with a shrug and then added, "You do have to be careful when translating across. Sometimes genders don't match up."
"People wouldn't notice or care if you used the wrong gender for nouns," Francisca argued. "Verbs and describing words-"
"Adjectives" Amelia helped.
"-Adjectives are more important to get right."
"It would depend on the person," Amina added her two cents. "I had an uncle that would refuse to speak to you if you did not use the correct article."
"That's nuts, having one word for 'the' or 'a' would make everything much easier," Amelia maintained.
"Or just have no word for 'the' at all. Like Russian," Ziva suggested jokily.
Amelia gave her a suspicious look, not convinced if the woman was joking or not.
"That wouldn't help much," said Francesca. "Endings of words are still gender specific."
"True," everyone else agreed with solemn head nods.
"Must be nice to be a polyglot," Amelia muttered
"It gives you a lot more insults to use," Francisca said happily.
Ziva and Liu giggled and nodded their agreement. Amina just rolled her eyes and tutted. Amelia poked her. She wasn't innocent. She might not undertake Arabic but she knew the sound of someone cursing when they stepped on a Lego. Now that response was universal.
"At least English keeps things simple," Amelia bragged, putting her nose in the air.
She got pelted by popcorn from all fronts. Everyone looked outraged. She gave her friends a sheepish look. Not the best thing to say to ESL people or whatever language number English was to Ziva.
"That just means it is unsophisticated," Ziva said.
"Simple," Amelia corrected.
Everyone just gave her another look. None of them would deem English 'simple'.
Amelia quickly reached for the bag of tiles and jiggled it over the game board. She did not need another rant on the complexities of the English language or another argument on adjective order.
"Why don't we get back to the game," she said hurriedly, hoping to distract them.
Thankfully it worked. Everyone was soon back to frowning at their own tiles, Ziva pouting at her 'e'.
"My turn!" Amina said brightly, returning her attention to her own rack of tiles. "Did you lift another three tiles, Ziva?"