Languages R Fun-E

Learning a language after age 60 is tough. But I gain some hope of functionality by thinking back on the experience of going through the language acquisition process a few times.

When we moved to Brasil in 1996, we wanted to bake chocolate-chip cookies, partly for a taste of home and partly to share a USAmerican classic with our neighbors.  Brasil has good chocolate, because of the many German and Italian immigrants who settled there.  I understood that chocolate chips per se would not be available, but if I could just find a bar of semi-sweet chocolate, I could cut it into bits.

photo courtesy Jamison Judd

I spent weeks wandering the abundant chocolate aisle in the large grocery store at the mall, with no luck.  Then one day, the phrase "meia amargo" caught my attention. Half bitter rather that half sweet. They looked at it a different way! Larrge bars were available and I was able to chop it into pieces to bake cookies.

Before going to Brasil, we took a semester of Portuguese at the University  of Florida.  I was in the class at 7:30 a.m. and Sanford at 8:30.  Every weekday morning I would throw my bike on the back of Sanford's car, and drive as far as his lab, pulling the bike off and cycling into Matherly Hall.  After my lesson, I would hurry out and meet him.  He would have the younger girls (age 2 and 4) buckled into their carseats in the other car, and I would hand him the book and bike.  I would drive home and he would go to class in McCarty Hall, then cycle back to work, bring the bike home, and we would do it all again, Five days a week.

One of the first things our Brasileira teacher taught us was that they are not firm about things.  Never answer a question with yes or no, always couch it as "acho que sim" or "acho que não."  Some folks from church had kindly invited us for a meal and the mom asked if I wanted a second slice of chicken torte.  I said no.  Just no.  Failing to answer properly.  She looked like I had slapped her across the face.  I understood immediately what I had done, and tried to answer properly from then on.

One comfort in struggling with a new language was the universal appeal of music and dance. During our time in Brasil, our stake at church was holding a worldwide celebration of the women's organization, and our congregation had been assigned Japan. More than a dozen auditioned to be one of the four fan dancers.

I followed the moves of the leader.  Maybe she was giving oral instructions, but her body was like my body and the words didn't matter.  I just did what she did.  At one point we turned around, and that is when I saw that most of the room had stopped dancing, and was staring at me.  (Thanks for those ballet lessons in elementary school, mom.)

It was a great experience, because I got to know the other three women in the fan dance and they made sure that I understood when and where rehearsals would be. And I could finally find a way to contribute to our congregation.

My dancing days over, but maybe we can find some way to contribute to our congregation in Indonesia, even with my imperfect Indonesian speech.