Category Archives: Language
Oh Arabic…
why do you have to be so difficult sometimes?
I will give you one example, today in class we were using the word for something that you must do, but you don’t want to do, we were using the word in sentences about our life, about previous jobs we have had, about how students feel, etc… well instead I said the word for “passing gas” (yup thats right the word: fart) instead! I didn’t do this only once, but maybe 3 times! And the best part was we had one of the male teachers for class! Oh good times… mind you, the words are very similar, 2 letters are just switched around… but obviously the meanings are oh so different! There are many words like this in Arabic. Oh how I love being a language student sometimes!… especially when preggo, seems my brain gets even more mixed up!! I have been told my many friends who have gone before me in this whole pregnant thing, by my doctor & read it books that your memory and brain isn’t quite as sharp when you are expecting. I am discovering more and more that this is true! Somedays in class I feel like I can’t even speak Arabic anymore or remember anything!! (granted this happens when you aren’t pregnant as well…so maybe I just now get an excuse for it!)… anyone else out there ever learned a language or studied anything while preggo? Any advice?
Back to school, back to school…
Yesterday we officially started our 2 semester of Arabic! Woo who! It has been great so far and we are enjoying knowing more than we knew last semester. We are so thankful to be back, to be speaking Arabic again, to be settling into a routine again, and to be moving forward.
I forgot to take first day and second day of school pictures… we will see if I remember tomorrow! Also, warning, it might be a little bit till we post any pics (hopefully sooner than later)- I have the huge task of looking through all my pics (I have over 12,000 on here now- I know crazy) to allow room for more- I have filled up my hard drive!
On a side note, we got broken into while we went on vacation to Amsterdam (more on this trip later- we had a wonderful time)! Even though it is super frustrating, kind of unsettling thinking about people being in our house & going through our stuff, and a pain, we are in good spirits. We have peace & are being reminded of where our treasure is…. Not in our stuff, but in Christ. And luckily they didn’t take my computer, our tv, or anything too big. Only DVDs, money, and some clothes). On a positive language learning note, Chase was able to explain to the police what happened in Arabic! I was proud of him.
camels & arabic
last weekend we went on a picnic in the desert with some new friends and while we were eating a heard (not sure if that is what you call them) of camels came walking by! It was a site to see and so fun to take pictures of! We have seen a lot of camels on the road driving to Dubai, but none this close! We had a great time in the desert and felt very arabian sitting under a tree trying to use the small amount of shade available, but thankful the weather was gorgeous!
Another thing we got to do this weekend was go to a STARBUCKS and study! It was so wonderful! We weren’t sure if we would ever be able to do this because of border/visa stuff (too hard to explain… just now sort of understanding it all…), but praise the Lord we were able to on Saturday! I am pretty sure I had one of the best Vanilla Lattes I have ever had, and got some great studying in. What a blessing.
Slowly we are trying to figure out the best way for us to study & learn Arabic. We keep hearing… get in the community, sit with Arabs, listen to the language, get a language helper, don’t stress out about school, study hard, but most importantly get with the locals… this all sounds super easy in theory- except when you can’t speak a ton, the woman are mostly in their homes, and a lot of the men speak enough English for Chase to get by… so we are just asking and hoping that doors and opportunities will open for us to meet people and to start building relationships… we know it will come. It is just hard to be patient, because my personality wants it NOW! But I am learning how to wait, how to ask, and how to be creative…. the is a very slow process, but we know worth it in the end.
back to school
we started school on Sunday! the first day was really good- we felt prepared & not too lost.. which was encouraging, however day 2 was a little different story- I told Chase that I think my brain has already exploded! – ha- we have already “learned” (I use that term loosely) a ton of vocab words & 8 letters! All in all we really excited about this semester & the coming ones. It will be really exciting and a huge blessing to be able to speak Arabic one day…
Here are our first day of school pictures! Makes me think of elementary school when my mom used to take a picture of us the first day of school.. kind of ironic because we are basically entering Kindergarden again- although we probably know less than my sisters’ 3 & 4 year olds that she teaches… here’s to an exciting semester!
We are going to need lots of this:
There is going to be a lot of this…
sorry the picture is blurry!
and this…
beautiful Colorado #1
Chase & I just got back from a 2,155 mile trip to New Mexico, Colorado and back to Texas! It was the start of all our travels over the next 3 months.
We spent 2 weeks in Colorado Springs (with a trip to Denver in between- post on this later) at a language acquisition training course. It was a course that taught us different techniques on how to learn another language. I enjoyed the course for a few reasons: the instructors were great (have an amazing life that God used in mighty ways), the people we met were super encouraging, and I am now actually excited about learning Arabic! For a while now I have been excited about the idea of going back to school and being able to do it with Chase, but not so excited about actually learning Arabic- when I thought about it, it seemed too difficult and almost impossible, however, after this course I have discovered that it IS in fact possible and that I am super excited about learning it. It still isn’t going to be easy and I am sure there will be lots of tears, but I hope there will be more laughter than crying and that whenever I get discouraged I hope that I can look back at this past two weeks and remember that I can do.
Here are some pictures from the gorgeous fall that was already in Colorado– which I am missing now that we are back in Texas.
more pictures & stories from our trip to come…
outside our training facility
Garden of the gods.. always have to "get our guns up!"
gorgeous FALL colors & leaves
