Scribbling #34: Remembering Where You Are

Sometimes it can all get a little too cosy.

Before the baby, we had pretty much settled into a routine in that, first, if a mission (e.g. going to the Post Office) involved a lot of talking, then Mrs. C would have to come with me.  Going about our daily lives like this was more of a routine than anything, as she was the language expert in our family, while I was the person who brought in the dough, any way possible, stopping short of selling a kidney.

And then the baby came, and things have now got a little (as in, Winner of the Understatement of the Year Award goes to...) harder for all of us.  In order to go to the Post Office again, and to do the same thing again, then we'd have to put Baby J's stuff all in the car, make sure that he's been fed and changed (if needed), bringing the pram/stroller with us, taking it all out when we reach the Post Office, putting it all together, taking baby out, putting him in the pram, etc., etc.  This wouldn't be so bad except that none of us have the patience of doing this, time and time again, especially Mrs. C.  We're going to have to do the same thing on Monday, to get the car sorted out for its technical checkup, and there will be a lot of technical words spoken by Slovaks that I will not understand at all.  Nothing.  Not even with mime.  And Slovaks don't mime.

A lot of people would be thinking now that, well, yeah, duh, learn the language, geezer.  Easy enough, isn't it?  To this I would say, yes and no.  Firstly, because it's due to context.  Last year was so mental that trying to learn anything was approached with a mindset that it would be best to saunter up to it with a twelve-foot rusty halberd and very gently poke it in the back.  I found out, slowly, how I learn language, and that is, unconventionally.  I learn by making a lot of mistakes, not by a simple positive learning experience in a classroom.  Case in point, I had four teachers last year, and it got to the point of starting, stopping and then starting over again so often that learning a language was tiring and highly demotivating for me, on top of the three-shift work I was doing as well.

This year, however, I think I have a little bit more of a chance, and language really does have to become a priority.  I have to learn this by myself, as this not only involves Slovak, but also learning more about the English language as well, as I have now started to teach that particular subject.  With the teaching, I wasn't very good at all for the first few weeks, and then I got into the swing of it, started to learn more, found out about more techniques and plans and all that stuff.  I feel more confident now, but I'm still not able to rest on my laurels, and that's a position I want to be in for a at least a little while longer.  I want, or even need, the same thing for my Slovak language learning.  I won't ever be fluent, but I want to know enough to get by.  I need help in doing this, but in the end I have to do the work myself in order to learn, and I learn well by using the language and through repetition, as one slightly frustrated Slovak teacher found out.  This is the hardest thing for me to do here, because so far, its just been a case of being able to take the wife along with me, or muddling along by myself.

Secondly (yes, all that was just "firstly"), language is empowerment.  You're able to go out, find stuff, be able to work the mundane day-to-day things by yourself.  This is obvious.  Learning a language, especially a Latin-based one like Slovak, is incredibly difficult for me.  Those French classes I took all those years ago were a walk in the park in comparison to understanding Slovak.  For Mrs. C, she has a gift in language, as case in point, she was able to translate from Slovak to English within her first nine months here.  This is an awesome thing, as in really, truly awesome, and not how a lot of people use that word today, a little too glibly.  What she did, what she was able to do, really dawned on me during Scribbling #1, thereby creating this blog.  For her to be here by herself, to fend for herself like I haven't, is also an amazing thing.  Her help came from Slovak friends who spoke good English, and later on, a couple of Canadian friends came over and she was able to help them in turn because of her knowledge of the language.

I don't want to set myself a challenge, I don't want to set a deadline, but I would like to do a blog post in Slovak.  This sentence reminds me about the time I got a text message from Christina in Slovak, and shortly after at Betka's grandma's house, I watched Betka go through Christina's grammar and correcting bits of it.  Anyway, who knows, it may be by the end of the year, or maybe not.  In the end, I'm here, I have to provide, and I've had enough of giving everyone a blank look when they're talking to me in Slovak, and getting repeatedly slammed for not learning the language when I first came here (a little bit unfairly, I feel, given the circumstances), or not doing something because of culture clash or whatever.  I can't fear about failing, so I have to dare to fail instead.