I must go to work in a few minutes, but I just wanted to write a quickie about my thing for languages. The local people tell me that I have been a quick learner at Amharic, and are so amused at my parrot-like-imitations that I do for fun. During my morning runs, I bring my handy-dandy notebook, which I read to keep my mind off of how terrible the gymnasium smells or how much I hate running on treadmills. Anyway, through these methods, I think I have come far in learning this language in the past 3 and a half weeks (can’t believe it’s been so long!) and can better communicate with the locals – whether they are the guardians and children that I interview, the WWO staff, the hotel managers, or the random taxi drivers I bargain with (now in Amharic!)
Anyway, the point of this post is not to brag about my abilities but just to say how amazing it is to see the difference that knowing the local language can make in connecting with people. In my interviews, just by being able to say “I like soccer too!” to children whom I interview, they visibly relax a little more, put on a smile, and open up to me. When I walk by other offices at the clinic, people come in and tell me to sit down, and open up to me – through Amharic and broken English (my Amharic is not yet sufficient unfortunately but I’m getting there!) – about the challenges in everyday life and work. Even the cleaning ladies and the reception desk personnel recognize me and are eager to find out what new words I learned today and open up to me.
Sometimes, when I am walking around the clinic, bored at waiting in my little office for my next interviewee, and looking for someone to teach me Amharic, I question myself – ‘What am I doing here? Why am I spending so much time learning this language that is spoken only in Ethiopia? Am I wasting my time – being negligent to my research project and my time here in Ethiopia?’ I think that I have been blessed to be born in Korea, to be a child of a daring mother who stayed in the U.S. without her husband for 8 years so that her children could learn English, and just to have a thing for languages. I think I am discovering more and more that just by learning their language, I am taking part in a big chunk of their culture, and contributing in a way that I have yet to completely understand.
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August 5, 2010 at 7:28 am
renovatio
“Languages are like windows. Knowing a language opens your eyes to the wonders and the world of the people that speak that language.” That’s a little piece of wisdom my parents like to repeat to me.
Learning Amharic is not without future benefit, Hyeon-Ju. Even if you only retain a sense of the language, and the reasons behind why people speak the way they do, you have gained one more insight into the world; one more way to understand the world better and to connect and understand people better.
You really do have a thing for languages.. just as you were better than me at Russian, you learning Amharic must be amazing to witness to the Ethiopians. My dad always mimics words he doesn’t know too, it drives me crazy, but if it works, it works!
I am, and always will be, in awe of the hard task that your parents undertook when they decided to bring you the United States. My parents and I went through a similar experience; but your parents are heros for being willing to live so far apart from each other and still raising a wonderful daughter.
August 6, 2010 at 1:49 am
Tariku
Great job, Hyeon-Ju! I think, by learning Amharic you might be rewarded with discovering some of the most important muscles inside your throat (literally). As an Ethiopian, I am currently trying to learn the beautiful Korean language via “Arirang TV”. I like Lisa, Kim & Blake. I don’t know whether it’s possible to receive the Arirang signal in Addis. I prefer this great broadcaster to CNN & co.
Please try to get acquainted with the Amharic grammar — you’ll positively be surprised.
Dehna hungi!