Tongue twisted

I've just finished reading Adharanand Finn's book, "The Way of the Runner" and while the bits about Japanese ekiden runs were interesting, I was more interested in his account of his and his family's experience living in Japan when they didn't have any Japanese to begin with.

The bit that really stuck with me was how dependent the author was on others to translate, to fix things, to explain basic things - even to help with shopping. Finn's description is so accurate, he pinpoints what happens to adults who are dropped into living in a foreign language.

"The problem with living in a country where you don't speak the language is that you start to sound like a child when you're speaking, and so people begin to treat you like a child. Then, to complete the circle, you begin to act like one."

It reminded me a little of my experience in Iran, without any Farsi, I was dependent on others. As a native English speaker there's the added problem that often times people want to practise their English as well (being honest, I very quickly gave up trying to learn Faris which, it later transpired, turned out to be a fortuitous decision). So, with someone else always on hand to "help" I sort of lost my autonomy - it was a vicious circle, as I was dependent on others to translate this led people to became overly concerned about me and they would then organize my life, much as we do with children. (I say overly concerned, with hindsight it was a justifiable concern, but at the time I felt I was being micromanaged!)

My Farsi was fairly limited, I wasn't bad
when it came to food & drinks

But it also got me thinking about how I can get back to learning Arabic. I don't want to lose the limited command of the language that I had and I may just have found the answer to my quest for a conversation teacher. More about that later!