The most important thing when you’re looking for a language parent to help you speak their language is for you to change your language.

What do I mean?

Take words like

teach, study, teacher, learn, class, tutor

completely out of what you say to someone you’re talking to.

Use words like

friend, help, play games, speak, understand

instead.

Why?

When you say “teach” people immediately think “teacher.” That’s a title that’s earned in a lot of societies, and it’s likely the person you’re talking to won’t have it. It’s also likely better if they don’t. Read why here.

How have you found friends to help you with their language?

When we’re learning a new language, we all have to pause and think in the middle of sentences, right?

So, what do you say while you’re pausing? “Ummmmm,” perhaps?

Is that what host people are saying?

Nope.

Listen and observe and see what they say when they’re pausing. In some places in Spanish it’s “este,” where I lived in France it was “euh.”

Once you’ve noticed what host people say, say that! It’s amazing how much more native-like you’ll sound, immediately!

So, how do people fill in pauses in your new language?

A colleague just emailed me this question

I was intrigued with your confidence that one could train one’s ear to distinguish sounds and that would give a boost to enabling language development.  (Maybe you did not say that at all, but that is more or less what I heard…) So, how is it again that I would start?

So, here is a lovely list of links that answers that question! The last link is the one that is specific to ear training for distinguishing sounds, but you can’t start there, if you’re just beginning in a new language. First you need to lay the groundwork, as follows.

• First watch these 2 videos to orient you to the big picture and to encourage you that you can make immersion happen anywhere.

• Then enlist a prayer team and get a language parent

The Four Things You Need to Learn Any Language

You Sent Out Flyers to Find a Language Parent?

How do I find a language parent?

• Prepare your  materials

Materials for Beginning to Learn a New Language

• Read the phase 1 English manual of the Growing Participator Framework.

http://tinyurl.com/growingparticipatormanuals

• Watch these videos to help you understand the games in the manual

• After you’ve played listening games for about 30 hours, you start adding in this sound sorting game. You want to get your ear tuned into the language before you start this, that’s why we don’t do it from day one. If you’re interested, you can read more about it here.

Was this helpful to you? What questions do you have? I’d love to answer them!

About a week after Mom died last August, we got this picture in the mail.  It's Mom and two of her friends on the Andrea Doria.  Not the trip where it sank.  Mom's on the left. 

A story I heard on NPR really resonated, especially this part:

"With the death, I'd become accustomed to seeing pieces of my father being taken away. But now, with a doorknob and a hand on my dad's shoulder, I had what I never thought I'd have again: a new piece of my father being given to me. …

Those pieces are precious. Especially when you don't see them coming."

You can click the gray bar to hear the whole story.

A Bolt Out Of The Blue:  Mourning A Man And A Myth   

In completely unrelated news, can someone tell me if the rules have changed for capitalizing letters in a title?  I copied the above caps straight from the NPR website.

Mary had a whole cabinet full of silk blouses that she'd bought at the market.  She used to cut them up and use the cloth to make really beautiful things.  She lived near mmmBELLYmay land, and was a friend.

Blogging about nothing and dogs and stuff is easy.  The hard stuff, however, is not. 

The end of this part of Mary's story is below.