jaGerman "ja", yeahindeed/(emphasis)

"Say hello to my new German friend, Johan!" I beamed to my classmates.

"Hello, Johan!" they called back, boisterously.

"Johan is a foreign exchange student who will be staying with me and my family this year." I explained. Johan was beaming too. He was rather large for his age, which made his ear-to-ear smile all the more endearing.

"Well. So that everyone can get to know Johan, why don't you ask him some questions?" I prompted my classmates.

A boy in the front threw out the first question. "Do you like it here, Johan?"

"Ja ja!" replied Johan, at which the class giggled. They weren't used to hearing a German accent, let alone a german response, no matter how familiar and understandable it was.

Now, you need to understand something about Johan in order to understand how he responded to the rest of the class' questions. Johan still wasn't very good at using English. He could understand it just fine, but he wasn't yet comfortable with putting sentences together. Apparently it's common to get used to understanding a language before you can really speak it.

Anyway, to make up for this, Johan relied on facial expressions, raw emotion, and vigorous agreement with statements that he, well, agreed with. But he had the strangest way of expressing it. Whenever he answered a question in the affirmative, he'd use a single "ja". If he strongly agreed with the question, he'd use more "ja"s to emphasize his agreement. If he very strongly agreed, he'd use even more, etc.

Judging by his response, Johan somewhat strongly agreed that he did in fact like it here. Roughly translating Johan's "Ja ja!" you'd get something like "Indeed, yes!".

Well, that's enough of that. Let's get back to my story...

My classmates were happy to hear that Johan liked their city and their country. This gave some more of them the courage to ask questions.

Another boy called out "Do you like football?"

Johan replied "ja". Hmmm...either Johan just mildly liked football, or maybe he was slightly confused as to whether or not my classmates were referring to American football or soccer. Or maybe he didn't like football at all but wanted to seem agreeable.

Next, a girl asked "Do you like our television shows?"

Johan was nodding vigorously before she had finished asking the question. "Ja ja ja". Apparently Johan really really liked our TV shows.

Another boy spoke up. "What about our food? Do you like hamburgers?"

"Ja ja" Johan replied.

Then, a girl in the back stood up on her chair. "What about the girls here? Do you like the girls?" She winked at Johan.

"Ja ja ja ja ja ja" Johan stammered on in a giddy, slightly embarrassed trance as he looked around at the girls in the classroom. "ja ja ja" he continued until I finally jumped in to help him out.

"OK! I think Johan's might be getting tired from all the attention..." I trailed off as I walked him to a seat.

As I, and most of the girls in my class, would later find out, Johan's response was pretty accurate. He did indeed like American girls! A lot!

jekor
2009-09-10