Language, Language, Language

Wow, Sunday night seem to come quickly for a new blogger like myself.  I think this is going to be a short and sweet post...because guess what I still have to do?  You guessed it...Language Homework.  An old friend sent me this link and it made me laugh so hard this afternoon.  Just watch the short video and imagine us as some of these people...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LysS2s14YdY


Okay, I hope you've watched it.  I am definitely the "It's okay for you all...I have a very small vocabulary" girl mixed with the emPHAsis on the wrong syllABle guy.  Trey were grammar guy.

Our goal is one day to know enough language  and culture to be the mixed metaphor chickadee.  But, we don't want to count our chickens before the milk spills.

Seriously, this is probably our single greatest hurdle and pr-yer request right now.  We want to know the language, but it is so hard some days.  It is hard to find the time (and let's be honest here...the motivation) to study as much as we'd like.  It is hard to find the motivation to go out and butcher the language and make fools of ourselves in front of perfect strangers all the time.  It's hard because often the people most interested in talking to us want to practice their English with us...good for relationships, but not for our language development.  It's hard because their are about 25 ways to mess up a sentence that you have all the vocabulary to say.  Of course there are the different verb tenses, but aside from past present and future there are six or seven (I'm being real here...I really don't even know for sure) different ways to say every noun and it depends on how it is used in the sentence.

For example:

I live in Serbia. - Živim u Srbiji.
I am going to Serbia. - Idem u Srbiju.
Serbia is a nice country.  Srbija je lepa zemlja.

Did you notice how even the proper noun had three different forms here!  Joy Joy!

Okay, enough of the negative...we are thrilled to live in a place where we can find some people who speak enough English to help us do things like register the kids for school and get our visas...(which Trey picked up this week! PTL!)  We are blessed with a great group of instructors that are helpful in and out of the classroom.  The owner of our language school took great care of us this week by setting up a doctor's appointment for me so I could have someone look at my famous foot "condissue".  We are honored to have to opportunity to be supported by many of you out there so we can study full time for a while.  We can't wait to be able to listen and learn from the great people here and to share with them all that is most important to us.  We love this place and the chances we have to grow each day.

View of our city from our apartment balcony.

When stand on the balcony and look out over the city I can't wait to learn my new language so I can talk to all my new friends...someday I'm trusting brothers and sisters even.  

Okay, to end this post here are a few of our favorite language blunders from the first few weeks here:

I (Randi) got the words for come in and I'm sorry mixed up for a few weeks and often told people I was trying to communicate with, "Come in,  I'm learning Serbian"  I also, used it correctly on the bus one day, only I mixed up my verbs this time and told an old lady on the bus, "I'm sorry, I'm learning English"   She didn't look very impressed.  Trey tends to over use thank you.  He uses it as a greeting, as please and thank you and any other time he's at a loss for words "hvala" is just what comes out.  We both throw in a lot of Spanish.  I even used a little in my first official language evaluation.  But, I was thrilled last week when an American thought I was a Serb and complimented me on my English.  At least I look the part even if I don't speak it very well yet.