Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Four Language Household

Have you ever lived in a four language household? I speak English and am learning Tagalog. Rev. Gaudario speaks English and Tagalog and is learning Kapampangan. Ai Ai works for us and she speaks Visayan and Tagalog and is learning Kapampangan and English. My wife of course speaks English. So it is not uncommon to hear someone say something in English, respond in Tagalog and a third person agree in Kapampangan. We are all learning, one sister came over to the house, who is fluent in all four languages and seemlessly switched between them, we hate her :-) ....no, not really.
One must be careful though, the same word in Visayan "to kill", is the word in Tagalog "to grill" so if we ask Ai Ai to grill something....well it may not be pretty.

2 comments:

Angie said...

This reminds me of the stories Sis. Venetta Jordan told me about visiting her dad and brother in Greece, where three languages are spoken in the home--Greek, English and German. Pretty interesting!

David and Christine Devonshire said...

Yes, Rev. Jordan told me that she spoke German and it has been a real blessing to them while they are ministering there. Languages are fascinating, but I no longer subscribe to the fact that by being immersed in the land and language alone, you will learn. You still have to do the learning, studying and practice.