If asked to quantify my progress thus far in language learning, I would sum it up like this:
Cue bemused looks from several people, one half-hearted chuckle, and a brief pause while the teacher acknowledges my grammatical correctness before the next student replies. While responses keep coming in from around the semi-circle, I steal a moment to look up the unknown words in my Latvian-English dictionary, upon which point I discover that I had stated the following:
"Every day, I buy sugar."
Not incredibly funny, but in the spectrum of responses mine definitely stood out as the oddest sort of purchase one would make on a daily basis. Bread, milk, coffee, newspapers, cigarettes, train tickets, sandwiches... and sugar. I could only imagine what must be going through the minds of the rest of the class: "Who is this crazy kid from America? And why does he buy so much sugar? Does he collect it? Is he a baker? His teeth look fairly healthy, so he can't be eating it all himself. Is he a food hoarder? Saving up sugar for the upcoming apocalypse? Does he know something we don't know about the current geopolitical state of affairs? Perhaps there's an impending global sugar shortage about to take place. Should we start buying sugar every day as well?"³
Last week, by chance, the teacher asked the exact same question. The point of the exercise had changed, but the pattern of the response was similar. Note my response and the dialogue that followed this time:
Me: "Katru dienu, es pērku dzīvokli." (Every day, I buy an apartment)
Teacher: "Katru dienu jūs pērkat dzīvokli? Faktiski? (You buy an apartment every day? Seriously?)
Me: "Jā, protams! Kāpēc ne? Es esmu no Amerikās, un visi Amerikāņiem ir daudz naudas... tāpec, man jāpērk dzīvokli katru dienu. Ko vēl darīt?" (Yeah, of course! I'm from America, and all Americans have lots of money... so, I have to buy an apartment every day. What else to do?)⁴
(cue scattered laughter and mild chuckles from around the room).
It's interesting to observe how different motivating factors have influenced my language learning. In the first several class sessions, my major concern was to avoid making mistakes. Comprehension at almost any level was far beyond my feeble powers, and real dialogue was nothing but a distant dream. My studies in between classes had the primary goal of learning enough so I could survive the classes. Being laughed at isn't a debilitating thing for me, whether intentionally produced or not, so I don't mind those moments when I say something stupid and it garners a mirthful response.⁵ I do, however, despise the feeling of not knowing, being in the dark, and being unable to communicate or understand.
Now, though, with just enough language under my belt to be able to comprehend the majority of what goes on in class, my motivations have started to change. My hope each class is not just survival, but instead to learn. To converse. To have some meaningful dialogue, learn some new words and important grammatical rules, and take another small step towards fluency.
There's a strong temptation to motivate myself purely out of fear. Fear of failure, fear of sin, fear of falling flat on my face. This isn't to say that fear isn't healthy, in proper proportions. A fear of failure can be a good tool in your motivational arsenal.⁶
But it shouldn't be the only one.
A far greater motivator is the freedom and joy that comes with fluency. That's what progressing in my language skills will - eventually - offer. And of course, this principle extends way beyond the realm of just my language studies.
The best motivator - the motivator, singular - trickling down and influencing all other factors, is the freedom and joy that comes from knowing Jesus and walking with him.
Being able to live - and laugh - freely is a beautiful thing indeed, and will be worth every moment of confusion and frustration along the way. That is my hope, greater than any fear of failure I might have.
And that is what motivates me to learn Latvian... and to try and sprinkle in some humor along the way.
The frequency with which I say something unintentionally humorous is now less than the frequency with which I say something intentionally humorous.¹
Case in point:
When I started attending language classes about two months ago, it was a real struggle at first to understand what was being said or even what was being taught. Some of this was probably due to the fact that I'm probably not the sharpest knife in the language-learning drawer, if you know what I mean. But an even greater debilitating factor was the fact that I was the only english-speaking student in the class.²
My survival strategy quickly evolved into a nearly foolproof setup. If I sat in the middle of the semi-circular arrangement of seats, then whichever end the teacher started talking to or asking questions of, I'd have hopefully four or five responses to listen to and try to filter out some recognizable meaning or pattern before it was my turn to respond. If you hear one word that keeps changing in an otherwise consistent reply, well then it's easy: just plug a different word - with the correct grammatical ending, of course - into the formula, and all is well.
Example: the teacher states "Katru dienu, es pērku..." and then points to the student at the left-hand side of the class, three seats away from me:
First student: "Katru dienu, es pērku pienu."
Second student: "Katru dienu, es pērku maizi."
Me (thinking): Ok, so there's only one word changing. "Piens" and "maize" are both feminine nouns for milk and bread, declined in the accusative case. Perfect. I don't know what "pērku" means, or even "katru dienu," but if the next response also includes a consumable item, then I should be home free."
Third response: "Katru dienu, es pērku kafiju."
Me: Kafiju = kafija = coffee. Boom. My time to shine. Code cracked. I'll use "cukurs," sugar, since that's an easy noun to decline. Time to answer: "Katru dienu, es pērku cukuru."
Example: the teacher states "Katru dienu, es pērku..." and then points to the student at the left-hand side of the class, three seats away from me:
First student: "Katru dienu, es pērku pienu."
Second student: "Katru dienu, es pērku maizi."
Me (thinking): Ok, so there's only one word changing. "Piens" and "maize" are both feminine nouns for milk and bread, declined in the accusative case. Perfect. I don't know what "pērku" means, or even "katru dienu," but if the next response also includes a consumable item, then I should be home free."
Third response: "Katru dienu, es pērku kafiju."
Me: Kafiju = kafija = coffee. Boom. My time to shine. Code cracked. I'll use "cukurs," sugar, since that's an easy noun to decline. Time to answer: "Katru dienu, es pērku cukuru."
Cue bemused looks from several people, one half-hearted chuckle, and a brief pause while the teacher acknowledges my grammatical correctness before the next student replies. While responses keep coming in from around the semi-circle, I steal a moment to look up the unknown words in my Latvian-English dictionary, upon which point I discover that I had stated the following:
"Every day, I buy sugar."
Not incredibly funny, but in the spectrum of responses mine definitely stood out as the oddest sort of purchase one would make on a daily basis. Bread, milk, coffee, newspapers, cigarettes, train tickets, sandwiches... and sugar. I could only imagine what must be going through the minds of the rest of the class: "Who is this crazy kid from America? And why does he buy so much sugar? Does he collect it? Is he a baker? His teeth look fairly healthy, so he can't be eating it all himself. Is he a food hoarder? Saving up sugar for the upcoming apocalypse? Does he know something we don't know about the current geopolitical state of affairs? Perhaps there's an impending global sugar shortage about to take place. Should we start buying sugar every day as well?"³
Last week, by chance, the teacher asked the exact same question. The point of the exercise had changed, but the pattern of the response was similar. Note my response and the dialogue that followed this time:
Me: "Katru dienu, es pērku dzīvokli." (Every day, I buy an apartment)
Teacher: "Katru dienu jūs pērkat dzīvokli? Faktiski? (You buy an apartment every day? Seriously?)
Me: "Jā, protams! Kāpēc ne? Es esmu no Amerikās, un visi Amerikāņiem ir daudz naudas... tāpec, man jāpērk dzīvokli katru dienu. Ko vēl darīt?" (Yeah, of course! I'm from America, and all Americans have lots of money... so, I have to buy an apartment every day. What else to do?)⁴
(cue scattered laughter and mild chuckles from around the room).
It's interesting to observe how different motivating factors have influenced my language learning. In the first several class sessions, my major concern was to avoid making mistakes. Comprehension at almost any level was far beyond my feeble powers, and real dialogue was nothing but a distant dream. My studies in between classes had the primary goal of learning enough so I could survive the classes. Being laughed at isn't a debilitating thing for me, whether intentionally produced or not, so I don't mind those moments when I say something stupid and it garners a mirthful response.⁵ I do, however, despise the feeling of not knowing, being in the dark, and being unable to communicate or understand.
Now, though, with just enough language under my belt to be able to comprehend the majority of what goes on in class, my motivations have started to change. My hope each class is not just survival, but instead to learn. To converse. To have some meaningful dialogue, learn some new words and important grammatical rules, and take another small step towards fluency.
There's a strong temptation to motivate myself purely out of fear. Fear of failure, fear of sin, fear of falling flat on my face. This isn't to say that fear isn't healthy, in proper proportions. A fear of failure can be a good tool in your motivational arsenal.⁶
But it shouldn't be the only one.
A far greater motivator is the freedom and joy that comes with fluency. That's what progressing in my language skills will - eventually - offer. And of course, this principle extends way beyond the realm of just my language studies.
The best motivator - the motivator, singular - trickling down and influencing all other factors, is the freedom and joy that comes from knowing Jesus and walking with him.
Being able to live - and laugh - freely is a beautiful thing indeed, and will be worth every moment of confusion and frustration along the way. That is my hope, greater than any fear of failure I might have.
And that is what motivates me to learn Latvian... and to try and sprinkle in some humor along the way.
¹At least, I hope this is the case. I could be wrong.
²This means that I'm trying to learn Latvian in a class being taught primarily in Russian. Even just typing that sentence makes my brain ache.
³A more probable line of thought: "Huh, that's mildly amusing. Kid likes sugar. And he also doesn't seem to know many Latvian words. Oh, wait, my turn to reply..."
⁴I realize how horribly culturally insensitive this appears; the rich American flaunting his wealth while abroad. But believe me, I've cultivated enough of a reputation among my classmates by now for slyly poking fun at American culture and stereotypes which, I think, gave me the ability to say this tongue-in-cheek while also stretching out my lingual limbs. Also, I have such a limited vocabulary - which is usually peppered with grammatical missteps, some of which I'm sure crept into my Latvian phrases above - that I just have to work with what I've got.
⁵I kind of look on those moments as minor accomplishments, actually. If I'm not pushing my language to the point where people are laughing at me on a fairly regular basis, then I'm not giving myself a valuable opportunity to practice, to learn, and to progress.
⁶1 John 3:3
⁶1 John 3:3
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| Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, an English/Latvian joke book is readily available for "homework." |