A Normal Day
#13 of my series on what a normal day looks like
Meet Andrea
I’ve talked about Andrea in other posts, but I wanted you guys to be formally introduced. Andrea is about my age, but I usually think of her as much older. I think she thinks of me as younger, too, since she suggested I marry her 18 year-old son. Like many people in this relatively new […]
Digging in Deep
A few months ago we decided to pen up our chickens. During a conversation about why, I asked my language helper how to say they were digging up our plants. “Oh,” she said, “say: tatahtáh hiyero.” They dug ugly. “Seriously?” I thought, “a word that sounds like a fake drumroll?” I dutifully copied her until […]
What’s the Right Answer?
When you live in another culture, it’s important to learn not only the right words, but the appropriate responses for different situations. For example, when someone in the US tells us they like our sweater we say, “Thanks.” Not so for the Nahuatl. Take a quick look at the comments below and see if you […]
The Perfect Woman
My language helper told me that some of the younger generation in this village is not learning to speak Nahuatl. She said, “Around here, what we say is that you guys…your group of white people…you have beaten them. Your mom doesn’t speak Nahuatl and your dad doesn’t speak Nahuatl, but you guys do!” I laughed […]
You’re…WHAT?
My language helper got a case of the giggles the other day while I checked some verbs. I was running through my list quickly and didn’t pay attention to a stress marker. Big deal, right? Instead of saying “I take care” I said “I am poop.” Trust me, I’ll get put the emphasis on the […]
Fake It
Here is an example of the Fake-It-Til-You-Make-It approach to practicing a tribal language. We had some out-of-town visitors in our village and I walked up to one older couple and said hi. After a bit, the conversation went like this: Me: (painfully) They said that you might want to borrow some blankets from me. Cute […]