Gift of "Ears?"

Yesterday, after completing a session with our language coach, he prayed that we would have the gift of tongues. After we departed, Laraine thought about the gift of tongues and realized that perhaps she should be praying for that, but also that people around her would have the "gift of ears"! I thought that was a rather curious and hilarious way to think of it.

We have been quite busy in our language studies. I have always known Laraine to be a very hard worker, but I didn't know how she would do when confronted with the challenge of Cantonese. I am just amazed at how diligently she drills her sounds and tones. She is truly working for the blessings of the "gift of tongues," and I have seen great improvement.

I am having a good time reviewing long-lost Cantonese speech patterns and vocabulary. It is a very strange experience to hear a word that I haven't thought of for nearly 40 years. I can almost feel a tiny neuron in the back of my brain fire an electrical signal. I have also started to drill on Mandarin, and will be doing several hours per week on that language. Mandarin, the national language of China, is a newer language than Cantonese. It has fewer tones, fewer sounds, and fewer ways of saying things. From my current perspective, it just feels like Mandarin is "twisty" Cantonese. The differences are somewhat like two similar Latin-based languages like Spanish and Italian. Once you are familiar with the complexities of one, it is easier to learn the other.

In Tears Over Cantonese

Before I left today for a couple of hours, I listened from the other room and heard Laraine earnestly practicing her Cantonese sounds and tones. Upon my return a couple of hours later, I thought she would surely have finished her grinding practice but when I came in the room she started to cry.

You won't believe it, but she was crying because she realized she could actually do this. She could actually picture herself speaking the language. They were tears of joy. I am so amazed by her determination and grit. She really works hard!!

Say What?

We're now beginning our language training. We plan to spend 2-4 hours each day in our mission language - Cantonese. However, because I already have a couple years' experience in Cantonese, I am going to add Mandarin to my repertoire in a few weeks.

Today was day 1 for Laraine and she did a fantastic job. I am so proud of her and how hard she worked to speak Cantonese. She really did well. See for yourself:

We now go two times each week to the old Knight Mangum Hall, which is where the MTC experience begins when you are doing "pre-MTC" language study. Here we meet with a language coach and a language tutor. When the tutor asked me what I needed from him to review Cantonese, I said, "Let's just now speak only Cantonese; no English." He then launched into Cantonese and I had to ask him to slow down a few times. It has been almost 40 years since I was immersed in the language.