Language Struggles

A few weeks ago I posted about my goals for the new year, one of which is to learn Swahili to the point I can speak and teach in it. The need for this was brought home to me the very next time I taught Sunday School.

A man wanted to get saved! Fantastic news! The only trouble was James and Zizi needed to talk to him at the same time I needed to teach Sunday School. Zizi knows I can understand Swahili pretty well and he’s been trying to get me to use it.

Thing is, I have used it with hilarious results. I come up with stuff like:

• God bless Himself (instead of God bless you).
• My name is what? (instead of what is your name)
• It’s good to see (instead of it’s good to see you)

Apparently I have pronoun problems.

My attempt at teaching Sunday School was no exception. I managed to tell the man who was going to translate my tortured Swahili into Kinyarwanda the book of the Bible, chapter, and verse I was using for the lesson. *pats self on back for that*

It went downhill from there. I *tried* to say Ahab and Jezebel were going to kill Elijah. What I said was “Ahab and Jezebel were going to Elijah died.”

Yes, you read that right.

My translator gave me the strangest look. Then he read the verse and said, in Swahili, “Ahab and Jezebel were going to kill Elijah.” I knew he used a different verb than I did, but it didn’t register right away what it was. 

So I repeated myself, “Yes, Elijah died.”

“No,” he said, “Ahab and Jezebel were going to kill Elijah.”

It went even further downhill, in that I *completely forgot* all the verbs I did know – ones like running, and saying, and eating, and sleeping, and nouns like food and water. In fact, I’m pretty sure I even forgot the appropriate English words at that point and started thinking only in pictures. Which does absolutely nothing when you are trying to communicate with those around you.

Amazingly, we managed somehow. Another man came to help. Between what little English he knew, what little Swahili I managed to muster from the depths of my cerebrum, and the Runyankore words they knew and I could use instead, we got that lesson taught.

I’ve doubled down on the language study since then. 

I was happy that the next Sunday, even though I was asking questions about the Sunday School lesson in English and the kids were answering in Swahili, I was able to understand all but a couple of them. Understanding does nothing when you can’t use the words. But I suppose it’s a beginning.

Out comes the Swahili/English dictionary and Google translate. Somehow, some way, I’m *going* to leap this gap between understanding and speaking.