Learning Journal #2

[Melale Hailu]

I am very excited that I have found a language partner. Her name is Genet, she is so multifaceted in terms of what she does that it is difficult to distinctly say what she does. However, it is clear she is incredibly knowledgeable about linguistics as so much of her research throughout her life in academia has been centered around it. She is a native Afaan Oromo speaker though she does also speak Amharic, which is what we also communicate in as a basic language. As a first task, Genet and I focused on learning the Afaan Oromo alphabet, called qubee. We did this by going through the alphabet and practicing the pronunciation of each letter as well as the pronunciation of the combination of letters, often sounds that are not popular in English or any other language for that matter. In order to contextualize the pronunciation, Genet would give me an example of an Oromo word that begins with that letter and ask me to pronounce it. This strategy of pronouncing words helped significantly more than just pronouncing the letter on its own. While many of the letters were not difficult to pronounce, most likely because of Afaan Oromo’s use of the familiar Latin alphabet, it was quite difficult to pronounce the combination letters that were specific to Oromo. For example, the sound created by the letters ‘dh’ presented quite a challenge for me. However, Genet’s reassurance that native speakers will be able to understand me despite my not-perfect pronunciation of these combo letters calmed the frustrations certainly. Upon securing a language partner I hoped to begin by learning common native-speaker greetings. Although the book I used included these phrases, there was some variation and more specificity when learning this with my language partner. For example, the book evidently presented far more formal greeting phrases. When learning with Genet I was able to hear what native speakers say in response to greeting phrases, and what phrases are common in what context. This for sure increased my confidence in speaking the language because before although I knew greetings in Afaan Oromo I would seldom use it when speaking to any native speakers I interacted with because I wasn’t confident about their applicability to the manner natives interacted with one another. In addition to greetings, we talked about my daily routine through sentences. This was interesting to me because I didn’t expect to dive straight into full-on sentences because in other language learning settings I’ve been in we start off by memorizing various individual words. But according to my language partner and her time tutoring students, she found that language is learned best when it is applicable to the learner's life. A laundry list of different vocabulary words would not be applicable to my life. But my daily routine, something that I do all the time certainly is. Learning how to say what time I usually wake up, what I do (wash face, brush teeth, eat breakfast), where I go (school), what I learn, and who I see throughout my day, all expose me to vocabulary while simountnsosuly being connected to my real life and able to be used in actual conversation-my dad asks me what I did today every time I speak to him on the phone so now I am able to answer in Oromo. This kind of relates to Professor Soloway’s strategy of putting sticky notes around his house that identify things he sees every day in his target language.