Sunday, July 22, 2012

Swirling Thoughts #219 - you really don't have to speak hebrew. but then u need to understand the signs better.

There is a pizza store in the Jewish Quarter in the Old City.  Generally, they get two types of customers. Old City residents and tourists. Old City residents get a discount. Tourists get spoken to in English. I took my kids with some of their  friends for pizza recently. We were a large group so (in my very best Hebrew) I asked the guy behind the counter if he could slice each piece in half.  I half-wondered if he would, upon hearing my perfectly accented Hebrew, offer me the Old City resident discount. He did not. Instead, he offered to speak to me in English. I insisted he should rather correct my Hebrew. He paused.
You asked me to chop the pizza.

I am not giving up. I will continue to butcher the Hebrew language until I have made it my own. That said, of course I will still automatically opt to read signs in English. Or better yet, try to figure them out based on the graphic:

NO HI-FIVING
NO 1990s

NO HAIRCUTTING SCISSORS
NO STAIRCASE LONG-JUMP 
NO CLIP ON SHADES
NO LEVITATING 

NO TIMBERLANDS
NOW WAIT A MINUTE. THAT'S JUST NOT NICE...
NO FAT GUYS
NO RABBIs
NO AMERICAN FAST FOOD
NO STICK-UPS 

Did u guess it yet?


 
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2 comments:

  1. David BachrachJuly 26, 2012 at 5:24 AM

    In Spain last summer I asked the cooking class instructor if we could have some socks. The whole class laughed at me. It's not fun. YOu keep at it. Soon your English will be bad AND your Hebrew, too. That's when you know you've truly arrived.

    ReplyDelete
  2. David BachrachJuly 26, 2012 at 5:25 AM

    BTW your photo captions are brilliant

    ReplyDelete

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