Pistachio

Ordinarily, you'd call a pistachio a pistachio. But if you're, for example, an immigrant from China and you've just seen a Ming vase, you [might:would] call a pistachio a "happy nut". Because visual cues can affect language in people with multiple [cultural:background] experiences. That's according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers performed [various:many] tests with students who had come to the U.S. from China. In one, the students heard a recorded conversation, in English, about [campus:school] life. But some looked at a Chinese face while they listened, while others saw a Caucasian face. The students then [spoke:talked] about their own lives. And the Chinese-American students who had listened while looking at a Chinese face spoke English more slowly and less fluently than those who listened while looking at the Caucasian face. In another test, when the students were exposed to Chinese icons, they were more likely to translate from Chinese into English literally. Thus pistachios became "happy nuts," which is the name in China. This phenomenon [demonstrates:shows] that immigrants struggling with a new language can face unusual and unanticipated challenges. And that what you [see:look] can affect what you say