The Other Half’s flown off to Darwin this morning for a training job.  When he’s not around, it’s my job to do the homework with The Little Misses. And eveyr Friday, both of them will have spelling tests at school. Miss 5’s spelling words are really easy and normally by Wednesday, she can remember all of them by heart and will write the words down without being told. But with Miss 10, her words have been getting longer and harder and a lot more and she’s only able to bring the words home on Thursday for a practice run at home. So, tonight I had to do the words with her.

Don’t get me wrong, I like doing their school work with them and I’m quite good at spelling (much better than The Other Half!). Mana lah tak nya kan, dari primary school dulu dah selalu sangat kena buat spelling tests at school and kena rotan kalau silap so memang dah sahih lah terer spelling lepas tu, hehehe. I rasa budak2 skolah kat M’sia semua terer spelling kan! The Other Half pun slalu tanya I how to spell words :-). But when it comes to pronunciation tu yang kadang2 I stumble a bit. Kadang2 I have to think for a few seconds on how to pronounce the words correctly before I can tell it to Miss 10. One word I really have trouble with is ‘academic’ as in people who teach at uni. I slalu terlupa where the ‘stress’ is and how to pronounce it correctly. It really pis**s me off sebab The Other Half is an academic so bila people tanya I what my husband is, I slalu tersangkut nak jawab and have to resort to saying, “he’s a lecturer” . Hampeh betul lah! Even though I slalu sangat dengar the word being pronounced by The Other Half, I masih terlupa jugak cara nak sebut dia, I really tak tau kenapa lah I have problem with that 1 small word, hehehehe….

I rasa English ni kan is quite a complicated language. The other day, Miss 10 had to do ‘perumpamaan’ or simile in English. I ni dah lah perumpamaan in Malay pun tak pass lagi, ni nak buat perumpamaan in English pulaknya, memang setakat cukup2 makan aje boleh lah, hehehe. And since The Other Half wasn’t there, I had to help her. She said to me, “ Mummy, I know it’s as fat as a hippo and as sick as a parrot” Dalam hati I ni tertanya2 jugak bukan ke ‘as fat as a pig’ so I asked her to change it. I tanya lah dia, mana dia tau ‘as sick as a parrot?’. Dia kata she read in somewhere in a book. I pun accepted it lah sebab ye lah books don’t lie kan, hehe ;-). Then bila The Other Half balik, dia gelak aje sebab dia kata tak pernah dia dengar orang kata ‘as sick as a parrot’, yang dia tau ‘as sick as a dog’. Terpaksalah Miss 10 changed a few things yang dia dah buat with Mummy’s ‘help’ , hehehe….

Another thing yang I menyampah is idioms. Dah lah a lot of them don’t make sense, pastu bukannya I boleh translate peribahasa melayu straight to english, ada lah yang akan gelak golek2 kalau dengar nanti. Ada setengah idioms tu yang I’m so used to using the english versions, bila nak guna dalam BM, memang pening kepala nak fikir the equivalent in malay…. Teruk kan, hehehe….. Tapi bila I dapat jumpa the equivalent peribahasa in Malay, seronok giler2 I, sebab perasan terer banget, hahaha……

But I’m thankful lah jugak sebab kawin dengan The Other Half yang mother tongue dia English so tak perlu lah I susah payah belajar another language kan, hehehe…

Sebelum I merepek lebih jauh, this was my dinner tonite. Mee tomyam chicken and seafood. The Other Half tak suka sangat tomyam ni so memang lah I akan buat bila dia takde aje. For The Little Misses I buat mee sup, senang kerja I, hehehe….