You're listening to a way with words the show about language and how we use it. I'm Grant Barrett and I'm Martha Barnett

Grant you and I are often asked what our favorite word is. Yes, and I like to throw up Malif Lewis and preposterous

But I realize that I'm usually throwing out words in English

And maybe it's time we shared words in different languages. So what's your ancient Greek one?

Oh gosh

No, you're not ready for that. Sorry

Well in Spanish the word oh halah is a wonderful word. It's from the Arabic and it roughly means the same as in

ShAllah. Hopefully or if God wills it and I love it because it demonstrates that Spanish isn't that pure Latin language

It's sometimes it's people of English speakers think that it is, right? Yes

It's got all this influence from Arabic. It's absolutely rich history

Yeah, yeah, and the other thing I love about oh halah is that it's followed by the subjunctive

Which we use so rarely in English and it's used a whole lot more in Spanish. Yeah, so oh halah

Oh halah

I'll say or I'll go right and so it's suggest the possibility of doing something you could do that. Yeah, yeah

Do something right? Yeah, so if you're gonna do Spanish then I'll do Spanish

Okay, but mine's gonna be a little different too

When I was young and learning Spanish in junior high from somebody who did not speak Spanish very well

I realized that she was an English speaker who spoke Spanish very poorly. It's 7th grade

I

Listened to short radio and I listened to international broadcasters including the propaganda station from Cuba radio Havana Cuba

I loved the music. I didn't care about the propaganda, but that's how I improved my Spanish

And so I listened to a lot of Spanish and I swear at the time I heard somebody give his name as

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