I AM MALTESE.....
and not
spanish
italian
latin american
czech
and now.. the most recent ... is PORTUGUESE....
This morn at work, a colleague: so errmm eeeee... mmmm Maria, are you portuguese?
Maria: no... Malta (pronounced MOLTA)
Colleague: mmmm... where are you from?
Maria: Malta (pronounced MALTA)
Colleague... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
this happens to me over and over again in my french class...
Teacher: So Maria.. Tell us about Italy and all its regions...
Maria:... Errmmm Madame, I am Maltese....
Teacher, devastated: So sorry.... :)
YES MALTESE.. I AM FROM MALTA!!
and Digs no, no jokes about my country!!!!
7 Comments:
Hehe, I know the feeling. When I was in Spain it happened to me almost every week.
¿De Malta? ¡Anda! O sea que tú eres griego, ¿no?
¡Coño! ¡Sudamericano!
¿Entonces tu lengua materna es el francés, verdad?
¿Y el pueblo de Malta dónde está? ¿En Andalucía, cerca de Granada, no?
And when some did in fact realise which country I was talking about, they would say:
¡Hombre, Malta! ¡Ese micropaís al que ganamos 12-1 en el '83!
Or even worse:
Malta, ¡como el whisky!
:-) Hope you understood all that!
Xejn eccezzjonali li cittadin minn pajjiz ta' inqas minn nofs miljun ruh, backwater ta' l-Ewropa, isib ruhu li jrid jispjega minn fejn hu... ahjar milli tkun amerikan/a u kull fejn tmur jaghrfuk mal-ewwel
biex inzid:
during my time in prague i was most often suspected to be a romanian or ukranian... on a train in Bulgaria my valiant attempts to prove my Maltese nationality by showing my passport to a border guard were almost in vain. they were convinced i was a turk. In Turkey some Kurds were convinced I was a Kurd. It seems wherever I am members of minority groups identify me with them. In Malta I am often mistaken for a foreigner. In one supermarket my insistence on replying in Maltese has not convinced the cash girls that I am a local.
Maltagirl... why Malta (pronounced Molta) and not Malta (pronounced Malta)? The first one is 'British' so I don't think it would be obvious for a Spaniard, Puerto Rican or even Swede (even if the language of conversation is English).
Usually people assume I'm Spanish, Italian or Greek. Which is reasonable enough seeing as my ancestors are Catalan Jews, Greeks and Gozitan/Maltese.
When I walk into an Italian patisserie they never "bonjour" me.
It's always "ciao" or "buongiorno".
The oddest thing I've been called (and it has happened at least 3 times) is Finnish/Estonian. I've got "Finnish eyes". Apparentely.
I don't mind it one bit.
gybexi, its very natural for me to say Malta if I am speaking English and its very natural for me to say Malta with an a if I speak in Maltese.. doesnt matter to me really..
Il-laleċ gybexi, mela għandek in-nomadiżmu f'demmek xbin, prosit!
Hmm... I guess you're right Maria. It's just I have given up the "Moltah" thing so long ago. It doesn't work unfortunately. Strangely enough (i usually speak in French) if I say "malte" it doesn't work either... just "maaaltaa" seems to work.
Where do you live btw? My girlfriend and I live in Schaerbeek.
Twan... Ifhem.. mhux in-nanniet huma hekk tafx... trid tmur iktar 'l hinn fl-istorja.. (1798 circa):
http://www.maltamigration.com/settlement/corsairing/chapter5a.shtml?s=51F1919B-7D5423100129-653B
(Joseph Depares jigi minni... wiehed minn ta' l-ewwel li telaq - history repeats itself ghax jien kont it-tieni Malti fil-Lussemburgu meta kont nghix hemm :) )
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