Language Learning

One Year Ago Today…

On this day last year, I remember stepping out of the airport into the bright Salvadoran sun. I remember blinking my eyes, looking around, and feeling  shell-shocked. I remember turning to my friend who picked us up from the airport and saying, “I can’t believe we actually went through with it!” That was a year ago today. The best thing that I can compare our first year in El Salvador to is my first roller coaster ride. I made the choice to get on it, not knowing what to expect. The twists and turns were terrifying, yet thrilling at the same time. And that’s what it’s like to cross-cultures. To be honest, this year has been really rough. We have missed our families terrribly, and I have particularly missed my […]

My Top Ten Reasons For Learning Spanish

 ¡No me gusta! This phrase translates “I don’t like.” And what don’t I like you may ask? Well, today it’s Spanish. You see, I am really and truly sick of Spanish. For nine months I’ve been trying to learn Spanish. Actually longer if you count my months of Rosetta Stone pre-move. For nine months I’ve been limited in my communication and for nine months I’ve sounded like a toddler. For nine months I’ve failed to roll my rrrrrrrr’s even after remedial r trilling class. For nine months I’ve ordered wrong meals in restaurants, and caused a lot of awkward silences in conversations. It’s actually really quite sad.  Today I literally think I may vomit if I have to conjugate another verb, or hear another commercial in Spanish. If I have […]

Back to School…

The last week has been spent organizing stuff around the house, planning meals, discussing kids schedules with Jon, and preparing our wonderful house helper Loita for the trauma that will be starting this week. I am going “back to school.” I hope Jon survives. You see, he gets to be “Mr.Mom” over the next 12 weeks while I participate in the daily lecture phase of the Discipleship Training School (DTS) at the YWAM base. DTS is a class that consists of a lecture phase followed by a field assignment around Central America and the Caribbean. I have never completed this course, and it is a requirement to be a staff member in Youth With A Mission. I have been a “volunteer” up to this point so I need to complete […]

One Month In…

Today marks the end of our first month in El Salvador.  As I am writing this I am actually sitting on our couch! We have been living in our new place without furniture for the past few weeks so it’s nice to have a place to sit down again! This week has been very productive so far. Our container arrived yesterday with the things from our house that we packed back in July. The kids were so excited to see their toys and furniture. We are now surrounded by boxes but hopefully we’ll be done unpacking soon! Our garage is also filled with donations for El Salvador. So many of you were so generous to donate everything ranging from clothes to bikes to medical equipment. The donations are going to […]

Grocery Woes

We visited the grocery store today, much to my frustration! I definitely will have to step up my creativity in the cooking department, and we will all have to keep open minds! Many of the ingredients are different here (obviously) and as I was trying to figure out what was what I kept translating things wrong and getting even more confused! I think I need to take a Salvadoran cooking class to know what to do! Curtains are also very hard to find. We have looked in many stores with no luck. We will probably just buy fabric and have them made. This is a great opportunity to get outside of how I think things “should” be and try to get into the mindset of those who live here. Tori […]

Language is Ministry

So, I’m a little focused on all things having to do with learning language since we are at PILAT this week. That stands for Program in Language Acquisition Techniques. Basically, we are not learning to speak Spanish directly, but rather how to correct our accent and how to pull Spanish into our lives instead of having it pushed in during a structured academic time. We are trying to get in touch with our inner-child to try to be open to learning language the way that kids are only at an exaggerated adult pace. Learning a new language is something that I am dreading about moving to El Salvador. Or at least I have been until these last two weeks. Now I have a much more confident, positive outlook. But I […]

Phonetics Drills, Anyone?

We made it safely to Palmer Lake, Colorado and the kids did great in the car! We are just getting into our first week of Language Acquisition School. We aren’t exactly learning Spanish specifically, but we are learning tools that will help us to learn Spanish much more quickly once we arrive in El Salvador. So far, it has been pretty interesting. It’s been awhile since I’ve actually sat in a classroom, and being the “nerd” type I’m glad to be here! Today we did some phonetics drills and some other activities to show us various ways to learn languages. The biggest challenge of learning a language, and I think ultimately the biggest challenge of our move to El Salvador, is getting rid of our North American mindset. As Americans […]

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