Matt and Liz have been learning Swahili at a language school in Tanzania for the past few months. Although learning the language of the people you’ll be working with can be an exciting and rewarding experience, there are certainly times when it can be frustrating too.
As we have spent the last 13 weeks studying Swahili I have had to come to terms with the frustration of not being able to communicate quite what I want to! For someone like me, an extrovert by default, I love to be able to communicate with people. If I have an idea or a thought I ‘HAVE’ to get it out there… somewhere out into the wide world! If I can’t I feel frustrated, stunted, unable to be who I feel I am. Unable to express myself and my character fully.
This is the situation I have found myself in over the last few weeks! As we’ve gone about learning a new language, and trying to speak to people in it, I have found that I often don’t have the words to communicate exactly what I want to. I’ve been struggling to express myself and been getting frustrated because I can’t communicate even basic things. I’ve even found myself get nervous when trying to say something (normally I have no problem speaking in front of groups!), and have to keep quiet when I would normally like to say something. read more
It’s also interesting to note that despite (or maybe because of) the kind of frustrations that Matt talks about, people who are naturally more extroverted often make excellent language learners.
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Tags: Language Learning, Swahili, Tanzania
So true. Sometimes I wonder if people here in Congo can ever really know me since I’m so limited in the way I can express myself. But the more you learn the more often you find that English also limits the way you can express yourself! There are so many things I just can’t say in English that I can say so well in French or even my little Lingala. Courage!