I walked into our village's shop and asked to buy three pears. "Ak'u mphe lipere tse tharo," I said in Sesotho.
"You mean 'pere'," said Selloane from behind the counter with an irritated look. "'Pere' is a horse. Say, 'pere' for pear."
I never knew the two words sounded differently. They were spelled the same so I had been pronouncing them the same. I apologized to Selloane for ruining her language, but also thought that she ought to lighten up. Does she realize how much she wrecks English every time she utters a sentence in that, my mother tongue?
Anyway, the distinction, as I heard it from her, was that 'pere' meaning pear has e's that sound more like i's, while the 'pere' meaning horse has e's that sound just like e's. So I went to my Sesotho dictionary to see if it indicated the difference in pronunciation. Unfortunately, it didn't. But it did list another word spelled 'pere'. This one meant 'anus'. Yikes! Imagine Selloane's disgust if I accidentally requested three of those next time.