I'm sorry that I didn't post last week, but I kinda intentionally held off on releasing this post. As you can tell from the title, this one is about language. It has been a little hard to learn the language because my host family wants me to help them improve their English, and my English teachers seem to always want me to do a lot of speaking in English. However, I asked one of my friends at school to make sure I speak as much Indonesian as possible while I'm at school, so hopefully that will make others speak to me in Indonesian instead of trying to practice their English. In addition, I have been trying to translate things, and the one thing that really seems to help is translating the Bible. I don't know if it's the fact that I am already familiar with it or what, but (I think) it's really helping me learn vocab and grammar. Translating news articles is proving to be interesting as well. I'm hoping to get a book or two in Indonesian!
Despite what some people may think, learning a language (or languages in my case) through immersion is not quite a walk in the park. I definitely agree that it is the best way to learn a language though. The idea of not being able to fully communicate with those around me is forcing me to try to soak up as much Indonesian as I possibly can. Right now, I am at the point where I can understand more than I can speak. Even still, I can only understand parts of what is being said. An example from school is when one of the teachers will say something in class. Sometimes I understand nothing, and sometimes I can understand everything. It's usually somewhere between the two though.
In addition, apparently I don't look too foreign because quite a few people have met have tried to speak to me in Indonesian or Sundanese. Also, this is a bit random, but telling people I'm from America is interesting. Just as one of my friends and I predicted, a lot of people don't think I'm from the United States. It's actually pretty funny because I've had people think I'm from Latin America, Africa, and even Papua New Guinea. I guess that's part of the whole "teaching people about my country" thing though. Contrary to what seems to be a somewhat popular belief here, the United States is a very diverse country.
That's all I have for today. Thanks for reading!
Indonesian Word of the Day: Ada - There is/there are
Sundanese Word of the Day: Nuhun - Thank You
Pachelbel's Canon
This is my absolute favorite song!
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