Week Two: Not Without Its Speed Bumps (Studying the Language of the Land of a Thousand Hills)

            This week has proven that returning to language study after a long absence from it is difficult. It’s humbling. It’s frustrating. It’s… Well, I thought I already knew all of this to be true, but to the extent that I did or did not, I still allowed myself to get to this point, this point of difficulty, humility, and frustration. And now that I am here, there is only one thing to do, and that is to re-familiarize myself, become closely acquainted with the language until I no longer feel so ostracized, and to never let it out of my sight and/or thoughts again!

            One activity, among the many, that made me realize the extent to which I was out-of-practice was constructing a page for my language-learning website, in which I am teaching visitors the language. This week, I provided a lesson on how one counts one to ten nouns in and between Kinyarwanda’s ten noun classes, and even though it’s a very patterned study, using the same stems and predictable prefixes (with some pointed exceptions in noun classes three and six), my recall wasn’t what it used to be.

In particular, I kept messing up “-tatu” (the stem for three) and “-tanu” (the stem for five). Of course, they look and sound alike, but I am still a little disappointed with myself for this beginner’s mistake. From now on, I intend to remember the distinction, however, by recalling that their chronological appearance is in reverse alphabetical order. Numbers might not make sense to me, but letters do, and I can craft a small memory game that way. Perhaps I won’t need it, as the language becomes more instinctive again, but just in case, I’ve stated it here.

            In the interest of becoming more intimate with Kinyarwanda, I have also been in contact with one of my classmates, R, who was in Rwanda this summer and may have language partner contacts with me. I said last week that I wanted to establish and maintain a consistent and productive relationship with a language partner, and hopefully, this will be the first step in achieving that goal. Note that this time, I am keeping you informed of this process, not internalizing and keeping quiet about any of these problems. In turn, I expect you to hold me to account, blog (even if just in my imagination).

            Finally, tomorrow, I am giving a presentation in class about learning a third or fourth language, while trying to maintain a second language. L and K expressed interest in the topic last week, and I am increasingly aware of the topic as a potential issue, not only as I want to retain any of the French that may have “stuck,” but also I tentatively plan to study Swahili in the future.