Category: Language stuff

One of the things that my trainer said a few weeks ago has really
stuck with me: “Don’t be selfish. You
read the Bible every morning, don’t be selfish with it-tell other people the story
you just read.” So, I’ve been trying to
do this, grabbing everyone in my yard when I first come out of my house in the
morning to tell them a story.

Getting fancy, the other day I went around asking in
mmm-BELLY-may, “Who wants a story?” I
got puzzled looks, but everyone said yes, they definitely wanted a story. Except I was asking them if they wanted a
pancake. Ti kpienpente = pancake. 
Ti tenkpienpente = story. Whoops.

I’ve been thinking about the power of the mother tongue for
the past few days, ever since I
looked up an English translation of  what I’ve been reading lately to
blog about it. I knew there was theology
in there that I disagreed with but when I read it in French, I would just kind
of skim over it and focus on the truth and beauty that is also
there. But, when I was reading the
English, the stuff that I don’t believe really struck me. “What! I never noticed that there was so much of this in here!”

Living in an intentional Christian community in France a few years ago, I sometimes gave tours of a
historical church. I wasn’t the
only one who did it, but I thought that I was certainly the most
spiritual. The others struggled to be
gracious to impatient and sometimes rude visitors.  Not me. Their complaints slid right off my back. I’d smile, chat with them, and get comments about my charming
(!) accent. Until the day I had a group of
English speakers come through. Complaining in my mother tongue really got to me in a way that complaining in French never did. 

It was kind of the same thing when I started reading the Bible.  I’d hear it read on Tuesday nights, and it would be so powerful!  Reading on my own at home I understood it, but it just didn’t hit me like it did at Bible study.  I finally realized that the version I was reading was really different from the way I talk and think, and that’s why it wasn’t sinking in.  It wasn’t in my mother tongue, my heart language.

Being out of my mother tongue is often a good thing.  Someone here (talking about herself, but it could have been me) said, "I’m a much nicer person in French than I am in English.  In French, I’m, like, ‘How’s your family, how are your children?  Is everyone healthy?’  But the minute I get with another English speaker I’m all, ‘Can you believe what she did?’"  I told a friend once that I "pèche" less in French than I do in English.  I was trying to say that I sin less, referring to about gossip, but I might have said that I fished less…

Monique and I went shopping today-Wednesday is market day,
the social event of the town.

I was going to say that I was blown away because I heard her
speak three different languages, and then I realized that I wasn’t even
counting French. Four languages! Not bad for a seamstress with only a few
years of school. Amazing and incredibly
humbling…

This is a picture of three very good sports, acting silly and not talking right away to learn language.  Strange how those branches grew right over their faces…

Anyway, if you’re interested in why the stuff I teach (and use myself) encourages listening lots before speaking, have a look at this post from someone who has more experience than I do.  Here’s James Asher’s website describing the method (and selling stuff for using it).  If you want to give this kind of thing a try on your own, I can’t recommend Rosetta Stone software highly enough.  Good thing, because the price is kind of high.

I was talking with a Peace Corps volunteer that did a few lessons with me almost a year ago-we were both saying how we still remembered how to say "die," and then we both acted it out like we did so long ago.  Good for learning and good for a laugh, it doesn’t get any better than that!

The past two weeks I’ve been teaching 3 women new to Africa some language learning techniques, the same ones I’ve used.  They’re practicing using these methods on French before they move out to a village to learn the language they’ll be working in.

Today I was bonding with them after class. We were watching an episode of Friends where Phoebe teaches Joey how to play the guitar-by practicing in the air.  He questioned this method, and she said something like "No touching a guitar!" 

At this point, one of my students turned and looked at me. 

Great.  I’m teaching language acquisition like Phoebe taught guitar. 

Ok, there are certain parallels.  It’s a strange technique to them, they’re not using textbooks, a teacher, or any traditional methods, and I’ve asked them to delay doing a lot of talking in their sessions for the first few weeks.  But, um, I speak a few languages slightly better than Phoebe plays the guitar?  The methods are based on solid research with proven results?  My hair isn’t blonde?  Help me here…

I’m getting ready to help teach a new team some language learning techniques.  One of the things I’m going to share with them is a book called A la maison.  It’s meant for children learning French, with pictures and their names next to them.  I blanked out the French and am using it for mmm-BELLY-may.  I use it the same way that I used the coal and other stuff when I was starting out, pointing to things as my language helper says them.  This book is great, since it has scenes from around here, and therefore stuff that has names in mmm-BELLY-may.  There are supposed to be 5 in the series, but I’ve only found 2.  They’re  published by the Paulines, a congregation that serves through educating kids, if you’re interested in googling around and trying to find them-maybe you’ll have more luck than I did!

Looking at this particular picture brought back fond (?) memories of trying to pronounce soap correctly.  Unfortunately, the word for soap sounds almost exactly like the word for ‘pate (kind of rhymes with ‘not’) the cornmeal stuff that I eat every day with my goat .  Good thing people use context to understand what I’m talking about…