This is from a conversation between Petra and Tage that I overheard probably nearly a year ago now, but I thought of it for some reason this afternoon, and it still makes me laugh.

Like most kids–or most people, even–my kids can sometimes be insufferably superior about their language skills in relations to others. Their English classes at school are a constant source of hilarity and/or frustration for them, and in this particular conversation they were commiserating about many of their classmates’ inability to properly pronounce “th”, a sound that doesn’t exist in Swedish. For some reason, the failure to master the word “three” was of especial concern to them just then,? and they complained about it being pronounced either “free” or “tree”.

“I’ll count to free,” Tage said. “Expensive, cheap, free!”

Not to be outdone, Petra countered with, “I’ll count to tree! Seed, sapling, tree!”

As a foreigner who herself has trouble nailing down more than a couple unfamiliar sounds, I had to interject and explain that they weren’t really being very nice, but in my head I was laughing appreciatively at their cleverness.