Emoji Language Beginner Lessons
This lesson is part of a series that teaches the basics of the Emoji Language.
Lesson Two: Where do you live?
Talking about places and asking your first question.
Text
Ann: 🙂
Bob: 🙂
Ann: 🏡 👆 📍🇵🇰🇺🇸🇷🇺🇮🇸🇨🇭🏙️
Ann: 🏡 👇 ❔📍
Bob: 🏡 👆 📍🇺🇸🇲🇽🇨🇭🇹🇷🏴🇷🇺🇩🇰🇺🇸🇲🇽🏙️
Interlinear Translation
New Vocabulary
| 🙂 | v. | to be happy about sth. |
| 🏡 | v. | to live, to dwell |
| 👇 | pp. | you, your (singular) |
| 📍 | pref. | at (prefix, also: place, location) |
| 🏙️ | n. | city, town |
| ❔ | pref. | interrogative prefix (used to form various types of questions) |
Explanation
In this dialogue, flag spelling is used to refer to proper names of cities. Flag spelling can be used to refer to anything that has a name, and to reduce ambiguity, a noun is appended that describes what type of entity is being named: In this case a city (🏙️).
In places where English usually has prepositions, Emoji Language typically uses prefixes that are put directly in front of nouns (without spacing). In this case the locative prefix 📍 ("at") indicates that the location of the described action (🏡 – living) is about to follow.
The interrogative prefix (❔) can be used to form questions. Forming questions is easy, because the word order stays the same as in normal sentences. In this case, we're asking for a location, literally "what place". (Sections 5.3 and 5.4 of the grammar describe more ways how the interrogative prefix can be used.)
Exercise
- Ask your partner where they live and respond to each other. Use flag spelling as in the example sentence above.
View the solutions to the exercises or continue with the ⏩ next lesson.
Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Heller [ˈtoːmas ˈhɛlɐ]