Language, and my Setswana-Spanglish

Learning a language is a really interesting process.  Especially the second time (or maybe 3^rd, depending on how you look at it) around with competent teachers.

I’m a native English speaker (hopefully that’s not a newsflash) that didn’t learn any other language until I was 13, when I started Spanish.  It was rough.  Long story short, I had a horrible few years in the public school system with bad teachers and classmates and really learned nothing, except a hatred of foreign languages.  By the time I got a good teacher (4^th try’s the charm) it was too late: I hated Spanish and I dropped it.

Fast forward to college, where I needed 3 years of high school foreign language to be able fulfill the language requirement.  I had 2.5 years.  Rats.  So I started over again with Spanish, learned way more than I did in the previous 2.5 years, but still decided that I sucked at foreign languages.  I can carry on simple conversations in Spanish; order food, tell you a little about myself, get a few directions, etc., but that’s about it.

Now I’m in the Peace Corps learning Setswana, a Bantu language spoken in Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia.  At first, it took my 2 whole days to just remember my Setswana name.  But after a week or two the sounds became more familiar and it got a bit easier.  And besides the actual Setswana, I’ve learned a few things.

1) I actually don’t suck at languages like I thought I did.  Granted I’m not amazing or anything, but it’s coming faster than I thought it would.

2) I’m beginning to see the link between music, math, and language.  People always told me that if you are good at math you are good at language, and I was always like, you’ve never met me apparently.  I’m pretty darn good at math- my college major got me close to a math minor, but I thought I was language inept.  Now I’m realizing that pattern recognition, something my math brain is pretty good at, is really helpful for languages.  I’m not sure I have ‘the ear’ that people talk about, but maybe at least I won’t require Setswana for dummies.

3)  Spanish is waaaaaaaaaaay easier than Setswana.  This has renewed my motivation to pick up my Spanish again once I get back to the US, because shoo.  If I can learn Setswana, I can definitely learn Spanish.

4)  I know more Spanish that I give myself credit for.  This is because every time I want to say something in Setswana and I don’t know the word for it, the Spanish word pops into my head.  Not helpful brain, not helpful.

5) I might actually like languages. Who knew?  I’ve hated and then found I didn’t actually hate enough things that I’ve learned to never say never, but this revelation is pretty amazing.  I still maintain you can put me in a mental hospital if I ever claim to like physics though.

6) If I like languages and don’t completely suck at them… this opens some pretty cool doors.  There are some places in Africa that I’d like to work in the future that are francophone, and I could go from there.  My one current worry is that I’m not sure my brain knows how to sort out multiple languages, as evidenced by my substituting Spanish for Setswana.  I’m afraid that Setswana is dislodging my Spanish, and that French would dislodge my Setswana.  Maybe someone who is trilingual can comment on this.  Maybe I just need to cement them both better in my brain.

So, language is obviously going okay. Ke ithuta Setswana!  (I am learning Setswana!)