learn a new language

I just spent a week in Cancun. Practiced a little, but mostly it made me aware of how much I don’t know.

The Dearest (who is fluent) wants to return there, so that’s some incentive to practice. I might even set up a specific time each week, as though I had class or something. We’ll see how that goes. :)

. . . had a field trip to the Corn Maze. The kids have their own language—well, they slur their gestures and I don’t understand them. However, I do get along well enough in ASL to sell food. Several of the teachers and moms really appreciated being able to buy water, soda, hot dogs and candy from me.

It always gives me such a thrill to see Deaf people’s faces light up when my hands say something they understand. They know I can hear, so they sign really slow to me, which I thoroughly appreciate!

Another thing I totally LOVE about working at the Farm every Fall!

Today, someone called to ask ME how to say something in Spanish.

The great part is that I knew the answer! Yay for me.

OK, so first of all, my aim was to learn Spanish, ASL, and Swedish (which is my heritage, but I will only rarely have occasion to use it). Portuguese dropped in my lap because I wanted to be able to understand my Brazilian friend. It is working, too! :)

The other day, I emailed her (in English) and closed my note with, Até Amanhã, which means “See you tomorrow.”

OH, BOY!!! She loved that I was trying to learn and sent me back a whole page of things to know! A veritable portuguese lesson, directly from a native speaker.

How wonderful! Que Maravilhoso!

I had to go to the library today, so I took along my audio cassettes to practice in the car. It was my first time listening to Portuguese and I realized immediately that it must be spelled differently than it sounds!

While I was at the library, I checked out “Portuguese for Dummies” so I can look at things and learn from the written words and the sounds on the tape.

At church today, my Brazilian friend was rejoicing over how “luck” she is to have such wonderful friends, etc. No one thought she was weird for saying it wrong, but no one corrected her either, because her tiny mistake did not impair the communication at all.

I pondered on this, though, and later asked my husband (who is fully fluent in Spanish and has a pretty good handle on Italian, Portuguese, Imara, and Quechua) whether people in other cultures are offended when English speakers butcher their words.

He said no, but they are more likely to correct because it helps the person learning.

OK, but what if it’s some drastically wrong word like in that cell-phone commercial when the guy calls the Chinese businessman “stinky fish face” ???!

He said that commercial is unrealistic and that most people would NOT really be offended, but would correct the error so the other person could learn.

Now what I wonder is if the one person only speaks the one language, how are they going to correct someone who clearly isn’t fluent enough to understand?

Anyway . . . my point is that I realized today that a big limitation to my learning new languages is FEAR!!! I don’t want to offend anyone by saying something stupid, and I certainly don’t want anyone to think I AM stupid, so I don’t try. I just learn and then don’t use what I know.

That’s about as silly as anything. What good is knowing stuff if you don’t use it?!

I went through a stack of flashcards in Portuguese today. I remembered them all in my little “test,” too!

This is very encouraging. Tudo bem!

Estou Feliz :)

I just acquired a beginner program in Spanish, Swedish and Portuguese from a website called Before You Know It. I practiced with some of the Swedish flashcards and it seems to be a good wasy to learn!

¡Treinta lecciónes y ahora puedo leer en español!

It’s weird, though, because the lessons were on audio tapes, not written out, and there was no lesson book, so why can I all of a sudden read and write in Spanish?!
Weird, yes, but I’ll take it!

Now I’ve got to get the Dearest, who is FLUENT, to start hablando conmigo en español.

The dearest and I just spent a week on the Big Island, exploring a lot of places that typical tourists never get to see. Hawaiian will probably not turn out to be a “language” for me, but I learned a lot more words than what I already knew (which must have been pretty good considering I have been asked by locals numerous times if I was kamaaina—I’m not, but I’ll totally take the compliment!)

I don’t find reading or learning this beautiful language to be difficult, but I wouldn’t get to spend enough time using it to ever get fluent. It sure is a joy to spend time in a place where I can hear it, though!