On a blustery and snowy day in Colorado, this is the view out the window where I am writing from. My favorite time of day = dusk, and the mountains and the snow are magnificent and mysterious. Language is also magnificent and mysterious - and the exact purpose for which I am here. "So how's your Juba Arabic coming?" you might ask. It isn't. "So you're doing what for 2 weeks?"
PILAT = Program In Language Acquisition Techniques
We are not learning a language, we are learning how to learn a language. Still vague? fricatives and stops and flapped r's vs. trilled r's - was that a voiceless K or a G? low to mid tone or mid to high? Put this picture of a potato on top of the picture of a frying pan and mimic the sentence your helper has said in Hindi for "I fry the potato." Then put the picture of "you" on top of the potato on top of the frying pan and mimic the sentence your helper gives you for "you fry the potato." And on and on. Lots of phoenetics - learning to make new sounds, learning to hear the often very subtle differences in sounds made in other languages - in other words: ear training. Or learning to listen and glean from your language helper what order words go in a sentence by simply listening to several different versions of very similar sentences: method training. Oh, the word for "give" that I just used in your language is insulting in this context? Hm, that's what the dictionary told me to say, but let me see if I can understand what the feeling/sense of this word for "give" is as compared to another word you might have for "give"...you mean you have 7 words for give? oh, you mean pants and trousers are different here? :)
It's exhausting, its fascinating, it's intriguing, it's frustrating...it's good.
One of the biggest things the program thus far has accomplished for me is helping me realize just how big the wall I've built between me and language learning is. "I'm never going to really be able to communicate with the woman I find myself sitting next to in church in Mundri. It's going to be so hard to find a language helper, and I'm never going to be able to structure my time or be disciplined enough to do this well, I'm going to get frustrated and resign myself to situations in which I can get by in english."
That's where this phrase about the surprising size of your brain comes in. It really has been surprising how much I can retain from one step to the next in these projects we're being exposed to. It has been surprising how many new sounds I can learn to make with my mouth. It has been surprising to realize that I haven't lost my intrigue with words, with communicating, with the puzzle that is another language. I am encouraged. And I hope to plaster these phrases of encouragement around my dukul in Mundri (hope that's okay, Larissa!) so as not to despair when it gets really hard and I don't seem to be making any progress. If I go into this endeavor with my mind made up that I will fail, I will fail. Lord knows, I don't want to fail.
"Lord give me grace in this. And help me trust you to do it."
~ Learn another language. Gain another soul. ~
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