Learning the local language is one of the most essential components of living cross-culturally. There are many ways to go about learning the language. Communicating is almost as necessary as figuring out how to get food and water. Sometimes, a translator is the best and fastest way to settle in. Thankfully, English is becoming more and more common in Africa, especially in bigger cities! Basic English is often taught in schools, and when asked, most English-speaking locals say they learned from watching movies.
One of our goals while living in the “Horn of Africa” is to
learn the language well! When we first arrived in the Horn in 2020, we had
been invited by an underground Somali pastor to live in his city. We prayed
about this opportunity and felt that living there for one year, focusing primarily
on language, would be a good jumping-off point for us to move further east,
deeper into the Somali region. When we moved, there was some tribal unrest in
the town, especially in the Somali neighborhoods, so our house broker could not
show us any houses there, but he could find us a place near the Somali
community. We quickly realized that this town was not primarily a Somali
town, as we had thought, but rather a good mix of many tribes. We needed to
learn the local dialect to get around town, buy things at the market and shops,
and pay our bills. We decided to spend a few months learning the local dialect,
just enough to get the basics down before jumping into learning Somali.
At the time, devoting the first few months to a language, we
did not plan on using long-term felt like such a setback! Having lived
in North Africa for four years and learned Arabic there, I wasn’t sure I had
the mental capacity to learn TWO more languages! This was not the language of the
people the Father put on our hearts! This language will not be helpful once we cross
the border! But! It really was necessary for us to get by where we were living,
so we dug in! We learned enough to get by, and I was even able to make a few
friends at a small market close to our house.
Like the rest of the world, we had a lot of ups and down in the
summer of 2020! We both were down for the count for at least 2 weeks each with
COVID. Our language helper was hospitalized with pregnancy complications. We traveled
to the capital, all of which meant we spent a few months not doing any language
learning. Thankfully, we ended the year with a few good months of Somali
language lessons under our belts!
….And then we spent a Y E A R in the states!
Obviously, I have forgotten pretty much everything I learned
in either language! It feels like we are starting over at square one, but that’s
not entirely true! We now have a lot of experience learning language, we know
our learning styles, what works and what doesn’t work for each of us, and we also
learned that we differ in most of these areas, so having language lessons
together is not the best option for each of us to thrive!
For me personally, I have (attempted to ) learn a language
using what is called the “Growing Participatory Approach,” or “GPA” for short. This method thrives on immersion in the language and culture, using a local language helper versus sitting in a classroom and learning from a textbook. This
is a structured approach to learning language in 6 Phases. Each phase eases you into
the culture more and more as you go. In the first phase, you learn a lot of
vocabulary and can say simple phrases. The second phase urges the learner to
speak a little more and carry on simple conversations. Phase 3 focuses on
the learner participating in cultural activities with the language helper, like
going to the market together or making a local dish together, then spending the
lesson time explaining in detail the steps of the activity. Often shared
stories are implemented in this phase, stories that I am familiar with, and my
language helper can read and then retell them to me so I can pick up on words I
don’t know. I have even used some Bible stories during this phase in the past. Phase
4 is where the relationship with my language helper takes a deep dive, and she
shares her personal life story with me. Phase 5 is when the learner attempts to
keep up with local to local conversations and listens to and understands local
radio or news programs. Finally, Phase 6 are steps to take to continuously learn the language and culture.
Once again, I find myself in Phase 1 and have been doing a
lot of listening! Actually, for the 100 hours of lessons, it is advised that the
learner not speak much! This is modeled after how we learn naturally; a baby
listens to others speaking for a long time before ever uttering a word! During
the first phase, we use small flashcards, and the language helper points to one
picture and says the word repeatedly. We add a few more pictures at a time, and
then the helper asks where is ___, and I point to whichever word she says. This
is how we gain a lot of vocabulary very fast! I record every lesson to relisten
to them later when I study.
Since arriving in February, I have spent a few hours
a week listening to my old language lesson recordings and practicing the words
with the locals we live with and when I am out and about in the city.
Fuzzy and I have been pretty busy leading training and focusing more on the ministry side of our work in this season and not focusing as much on language learning. We again have found ourselves in a place that requires us to use the local language, and are not able to focus on Somali just yet. I have been feeling a little stressed about being here for 3+ months, and I’m still stringing short phrases together or using one or two words that I know and a lot of pointing! Last week I decided to crack down on and spend a significant amount of time listening to my language recordings. After a few days of this, I felt like I was finally making teeny tiny baby steps of progress, and then all night, I dreamed in Arabic, a language I haven’t used in my daily life for 3 years! 😏
Ahhh.. the life of a cross-cultural worker!