Yesterday, I met my old, programmer friends, and above are the dogs I played with. They were so cute.
First, three
of us are not native speakers of English, and because Lisa is Taiwanese and
does not speak Japanese, we are speaking in English. We all came to the U.S. in our adulthood, so
I let you imagine our conversation and pronunciation.
"What
are their names?" Nobuko asked Lisa.
"This
is Kobi,” Lisa points to her golden retriever, “and that is Tobi."
"Kobe?"
Nobuko said and tried to confirm.
"No,
not Kobe. His name is Koby with y."
They
went back and forth to confirm the spelling of the dogs' names. I didn’t say anything because for some
reason, this conversation amused me a bit.
I thought even if native speakers were talking, we would not know the
difference among Kobe, Koby, and Kobi.
“Well," I said, "Koby, Toby, Noby!”
