Man, today was rough.
My tutor and I talked lasted week about my lessons. (This is my third tutor.) I am okay with reading kreyòl—I can typically read a text and comprehend what I’m reading because I’m translating as I go, and I pick up a lot of context clues. But I’m seeing the words and phrases at a glance, and that helps me translate quickly.
So I said to him, we should spend more time with you talking and me listening & then responding. That is, not using a text but instead listening to actual kreyòl being spoken.
Now, all three of my tutors are very well educated, all speak English and French and kreyòl. (And I think they all speak Spanish as well.) They’re well-versed in educating people in these languages.
So if there’s any difficulty with this plan, it’s on me.
Because yee haw how I crashed today. My teacher attempted to read me a short paragraph of perhaps 200 words and it was excruciating for him. We did not use a text. He was reading clearly and slow enough that I should have understood. But my brain could not hold a single word once the next word came into my head, and lordy I just went down in flames.
He was very patient and we’ll do it again. He suggested I record myself reading some difficult texts and then play them back so I can try to understand them. And he suggested I listen to Haitian music so that I can hear the words in the music.
All good things.
And really, a very good thing to see where I’m weakest and then push into that.
Still—it was so hard! When I’m “talking” via text, I’m very confident. If I’m talking and doing most of the conversing, I’m okay.
It’s this listening to a regular conversation where I am just . . . terrible.
Time to get to work!