Language

Right now my brain feels like mush…but generally I’m really enjoying my classes. When I took Bangla lessons in 2007 it felt like I was just told how to say stuff. I’d ask how to say a sentence, and then I’d memorize how to say it. Now I feel like everyday I’m given new building blocks and that increasingly I’m able to build the sentence that I want to build.

So far I’ve learned present, past, future tense verb conjugation, infinitive sense, how to say I need something, I want to do something, I must do, infinitives, gerunds, and today I learned how to do “if…then” sentences.  I love it.

So one of the things that I love about my class is that we’ll learn a new sentence structure etc, some new vocabulary, and then we’ll do some reading. After we read the best we can, our teacher will explain the meaning of the conversation, and then she’ll say, “now read together and read again after me” I don’t know why…but I love it when she says that. It makes me smile just a bit every time.

Sheila and I have thought of lots of different ways to study…the other night while we were chopping veggies for our dinner we decided we’d conjugate verbs. The best ides though is sit-ups/push-ups/wall sits/lunges while conjugating verbs. In her high school Spanish class Sheila heard about a priest who learned Spanish very quickly. When asked what the secret of his success was he said that while he exercised he conjugated verbs instead of counting…we we’ve adopted his method (on nights when we’re feeling especially motivated anyway).

And now for my last (for now) and most profound language musings…when we were on our WMF regional retreat there was a time of prayer where we gathered in small groups and shared personal prayer requests, and then prayed for each other. Both Sheila and I (in separate groups) shared that we’d be headed to language school – and asked for prayers as we studied and learned. Later Sheila shared with me that one of our co-workers prayed over her that “she would learn with joy just like she will serve out of joy.” Another co-worker prayed over me, “Jesus, we know that you speak perfect Bangla, and that you live in Melissa. May your knowledge of Bangla be manifest in her.” Both prayers are so beautiful/powerful…and have taken up residence in both our hearts.