love despite the language gap

one of the best articles i've read in awhile. read till the end!

and i'm glad that we share the same first languages. although he'd be the first to point out that my pseudo-first language isn't really all i make it out to be.

i don't think i could ever be attracted to someone who had a different first language, even if he was was equally proficient in mine. because something gets lost in translation and i'm never as comfortable as i am when i speak my mother tongue, mother tongue here being what my mother speaks to me, literally.

and nothing soothes me the way my grandma's malay coos do. when she calls me sayang, when she babbles in her peranakan patois, when she snaps 'besing memekak!' and i know she doesn't really mean it. little things like that :) and i realise that i instinctively react the same way, i coo the same way to the love of my life and i scold him the same way when he barks. but i, too, don't really mean it.