Lost In Translation

I was asking for an interpretation of a word I did not know yesterday. The conversation ensued;

Dee: “What does this mean?” (pointing to a word)

Z: “oni”

Dee: “Oh. What is that?”

Z: “You don’t know oni?”

Dee: “No. Is it some sort of local drink?”

Z: “Oni”

Dee: “Oni...”

Z: “Oni”

Dee : “Oh…. Ok. Oh. Hunne-y!”

Z: “hmm, yes, oni”

Dee: “hahaha. Oh the accent.”

(no reciprocal laughter)

Yes, a long winded conversation, and me thinking I’ve just learnt about a new food that I could look into, but really we were talking about good old honey. (why not laugh about it? I guess it’s not that funny, to  me it was).

We all speak English here, but the pronunciations are different. People in Ghana are used to the American or European accent, but the Australian is fairly new, and very different to Ghanaian English. I often need my own interpreter. Luckily my colleagues mostly understand me, but more often than not, when I’m in a meeting one of them will have to repeat what I say to everyone. To me, sounding exactly the same, but to people (especially of the north) here, it’s entirely different. I guess take 'oni' and 'hunnee' as two entirely different words.

I mostly have problems with Ghanaians pronouncing words that start with ‘th’. This is not pronounced ‘th’ like we would say ‘theory’ but instead pronounced ‘te-ory’. It has been quite confusing for me. You don’t ‘think’, you ‘tink’. You ‘tank’ someone rather than ‘thanking’ them. 'three' is more like a roll of the tongue, and my colleague had to write 'threat' on a piece of paper for me to understand the word. Whenever I am absolutely stumped by what someone is saying, mostly it’s a ‘th’ word. But knowing that doesn't help!

Other lost in translation fun includes telling a Ghanaian friend he has nice pants. He stared strangely, and as a wave of emotions went over his face, he exclaimed “oh, you mean my trousers?” followed by an explanation of how pants means underwear, and it was in fact an inappropriate comment. Having worn a skirt that day, I made sure I didn’t make the statement that I wasn’t wearing pants...

I just found this image at www.villageaid.org/ghanas-honey-rush.html the honey here is delicious.
Very different to that from home.