It’s just weird how the cycle works. I reach a point where I just cannot absorb another thing in kreyòl. I am tired. My head is full of mush. It is all just sounds, and sounds that all seem the same.
Then in a few days—sometimes almost overnight—it just clicks. Again.
Last time I posted (a week ago) I was unable to do anything more. I canceled my tutorial lesson, did the minimum each day in Duolingo, did almost nothing the entire week in my homework (the printed book we’re using for my lessons), and in general mostly just checked out.
I hadn’t given up. But I was just . . . empty.
Then, I started back in on Tuesday this week, doing a few hours in the morning, some at night. Had my lesson with Tutor A Tuesday night, and we just spoke in kreyòl about directions (vire agoch/vire adwat/ale tou dwat) and I had to describe how to navigate around a city in Haiti I’d never seen before.
Then on Wednesday, I had a conversation with Tutor B and one other person in Haiti, with the same problems as before with this tutor – lots of background noises (motorcycles, dogs barking, children playing), then a conversation just with my tutor. Thursday with Tutor A was similar, now including my lesson, and mostly I did this in kreyòl. (To be fair, we’re mostly just talking now about ordinary stuff. The book comes into play about 15 minutes before the end of class.) I had some new grammatical constructions to learn, and they were hard, but I wasn’t befuddled. Just tired, a bit.
Then this morning another few hours of practice, then in the afternoon a spontaneous conversation with two other people I’ve never talked to before, and then my final lesson with Tutor C, who is really very, very good and demanding, showing me ten new sentences that I had to read/translate/understand on the fly and discuss whether they were straightforward sentences (sans pwòp) or sentences with either figures of speech or cultural references (sans figatif).
Lordy, I do not know anything about Haitian culture or cultural references! How am I supposed to know that something that seems straightforward (sans pwòp) is really a figure of speech (sans figatif)? “When the tree leaves fall is not when the leaves rot.” Okay, I can see that. But it means what now?
Not saying that I speak well.
But . . .
When I spoke spontaneously with the two other people, I was able to have a conversation and listen to them and mostly understand. The conversation with my instructor and his guest on Wednesday, although interrupted by noise, was good because I am better able to “fill in the blanks” when I hear a question or sentence. And even though tonight’s conversation with my third instructor was difficult, it wasn’t the vocabulary or grammar that was hard. Sure, I had to learn a few new words, but I was able to get the sense right away. I just need to learn all of Haiti’s history and economics and politics and social strata and religion and . . .
Folk, I’m speaking, reading, and sometimes thinking in kreyòl.
Not much. Not all the time. Not well.
But the thing I’m pushing for–natively thinking and speaking–is coming in longer and longer moments.
It’s been seven and a half months. I have worked every single day, for multiple hours almost every day, even when I went to Dallas for a week and was in Atlanta for a week. I’ve read articles and texts every day. And I write and write and write every single day so that words and phrases stick in my head.
Please dear God help me gain mastery of this language!