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.