A Language Milestone

The past week I've had two huge language milestones.

It's not that I said, heard, or learned anything spectacularly profound, but rather just two small, almost forgettable moments in which I realized that, despite persistent struggles with vocabulary, idioms, crazy accents that cut out the "s" of words, etc, I really have come a long way.

Moment 1:

Saturday night. I was walking down the street with two Americans when I heard some locals say, "look at the 'guiris' here..."

"Guiri" is a word used for tourists, particularly Northern Europeans or Americans. It often implies somebody who is wide-eyed, doesn't know where they're going, taking pictures of everything, getting in the way, wearing goofy tourist clothes, or annoying study abroad students who run about making loud spectacles everywhere they go.

Well these guys were talking about us, who at the moment were involved in none of the aforementioned activities but merely walking down the street.

So I turned around and said in their language, "I understand you. I speak your language."

What a wonderful feeling that was!! It was a small moment, but it felt so good to throw those guys for a loop!!

Moment 2:

Yesterday on my way home I passed through the train station and decided to buy a sandwich at the snack shop. I silently handed the clerk my sandwich, she rang it up, pointed to the price on the screen and I paid her. When she handed me my change and receipt I said to her, "have a nice day!" I must say, my accent was dang good that day, which might explain her reaction.

She let out a little scream and put her hand over her mouth, her eyes as wide as saucers. She said, "oh my goodness! I thought you were Polish or something...I had no idea you were a...oh wow, I thought you were a foreigner, that's why I pointed at the price...wow, it's just you look..."

She was stumbling over her words with nervous laughs and brief pauses while she examined my foreign-looking face yet native sounding "have a nice day!"

I smiled sweetly at her and said, "well, I'm an American, but I've lived here a little over a year."

She let out a sigh and a laugh and complimented me on my language. Granted, I only said a few sentences but apparently I said it good enough to confuse her quite a bit!

The longer I live here and the more I learn about this language, the more I realize just how much there is to learn.

Learning a language is not a simple matter of new vocabulary but rather a new way of thinking, a new way of expressing meaning, gaining a cultural understanding and a context for the language, learning how to play with words and ideas and phrases and so much more. It's far more complicated than grammar, vocabulary, and pronounciation and I still have so far to go.

But it's worth celebrating each and every milestone. From being able to order at a restaurant by yourself to reading the first 5 Harry Potter books (and eventually 6 and 7 as well!) and hopefully one day being able to verbally express the deepest parts of me without stumbling over my words - each step is one more ahead of your last and worth celebrating, so celebrate I will.