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learn in a structured classroom setting, but to
a learner, the world is the classroom. There is
certainly nothing wrong with the classroom
setting, but we must be able to learn from
common every day circumstances as well.

3. Make lots of mistakes, and
learn to laugh at yourself.

A learner is humble. Pride is often the biggest
hindrance to learning. Children learn to speak
a language by constantly being corrected on
their sentence structure and pronunciation.

As adults, we must humbly become like
little children and be willing to be constantly
corrected. I was told “Anybody can learn
Portuguese, you just have to be willing to make
500,000 mistakes, so try to make your first
1,000 mistakes today!” I think there is wisdom
to this statement.

Anyone who learns a language will have funny
and embarrassing stories. You quickly learn
to laugh at yourself. Some words sound very
similar, but they mean totally different things.

I remember soon after we arrived, I passed a
man on the street who had a freshly caught
octopus in a clear plastic bag. He was trying
to sell it. I stumbled through a few pleasantries
with him and learned the word for octopus was
polvo. A few days later, I was sitting in church
listening to our missionary friend preach. At
this point in our language learning, we were
just listening for any words we recognized. He
was talking about the people of Israel in the
wilderness. He kept saying the povo of Israel.

Povo is the word for people. It made me laugh
that the words for octopus and people are so
similar: polvo and povo—that sure makes the
Bible stories a little different. Ha!
4. Any exposure to your target
language is helpful.

We have learned that any exposure to our target
language is helpful. We get lots of practice at
church functions. We try to watch the local
news every evening. We have found some
helpful resources online. Our children even
have a few favorite children’s programs they
watch on television. We are amazed at how
much they pick up from watching. Taxi drivers,
10 BIMI WORLD
Number 2, 2019
store cashiers, the waitresses, the butcher, the women
selling goods on the sidewalk, and the people we wait
in line with to pay bills are all more opportunities to
learn and practice our language.

5. Take time to learn all you
can about the culture.

We are blessed with the opportunity to learn the
culture and language at the same time. I know if we
would have shown up in Cape Verde already fluent in
the language, we would have been tempted to jump
headlong into every opportunity. As we learn the
language, we intentionally are examining the cultural
context. We have observed that one of the blessings
of having to slow down and learn the language is
having the time to observe the culture as well. Clear
communication is the goal of the missionary, and
without linguistic and cultural understanding, clear
communication is impossible.

With the thousands of languages in our world today,
language learning is a vital part of reaching our world
with the Gospel. Please pray for us and for other
missionaries who are learning a foreign language that
God would give us the courage and determination to
continue to the uttermost. W