It’s all Khmer to me???

One of the things I love about independent language learning is that on ‘home days’ (learning at home rather than in the classroom) I get to wear what I want, what’s comfortable. At school, I wore more culturally appropriate clothing; long sleeves and long pants. This stage of learning reminds me of when I was studying for my Masters in Theology in Australia, though that time was winter and I was wearing my jumper and uggies (read sweater and ugg boots). Still wearing comfortable, but in a different way.

My last post hopefully gave you a general sense of the changes in my language learning. This posts delves into some of that detail of my independent language learning to give you a better sense of the changes.

Planning:

So what will this next phase look like? Well, it won’t be full time classroom (3hrs a day, 5 days a week). Instead, the first step is to set up some goals. These goals will then help direct how I set up my time. The more concrete these goals are the better. This is because the more specific these goals are, the easier it will be to plan steps needed to reach the goal. This in turn will mean that each step has clarity, helping me to execute each step and get feedback on how I’m tracking. On an aside, in chatting with a mentor of mine back in Australia, success in this sort of plan will include the plan’s flexibility. Because I’m diving into new waters, a good plan won’t be one where I know if the goal is achievable from the outset. A good plan at the moment is one that adapts to new situations, even if those changes occur weekly.

Aiming at different skills:

The way I’ll work out the goals is basing them on developing and strengthening skills that I’ll need in order to be able to teach in Khmer. So these goals will cover all modalities: listening, reading, writing and speaking. In terms of speaking there are two basic types of speaking (and tied very closely to that, listening) that I want to work on: presentational and conversational. In one you have more control, the other being more dynamic, and so each requiring different skills. So on the first I’ll need to work on clarity and precision and on the latter adaptability and reactivity. In terms of reading and writing, I’ll be aiming at building my vocabulary surrounding biblical terminology and themes. While I’m aiming for my reading to enhance my vocab and so also my speaking and listening ability, I’m conscious that I need to work on Khmer conversations in order to not end up sounding just like a book. In order to execute this plan I aim to be around the Bible school (in an informal way) more over the coming months in order to use this context as the location of building these skills and reaching my language goals.

Targeted and random language learning:

Flowing out of the independent language learning seminar was a strong emphasis on what I’ll call targeted language learning. The key in this sort of learning is what’s called comprehensible input. That is, you aim to learn one or two new things from a piece of text or conversation where you already know a significant amount of the material. That way you’re not being flooded with all this new stuff that you are unable to use. Instead, you aim to learn one or two new things. Then take those one or two new things and use them in other ways, to build understanding through using them, to remember them and make them more familiar. What this requires is a good amount of preparation. Tutoring sessions, in this manner, will require a good amount of preparation. Which means that if I want to do 3-5 hours of tutoring a week, I’m easily spending that amount of time in preparation or follow up. What this means is that if I was doing 15 hours at language school, I can’t expect to do the same amount given that I’ve got the prep to do as well. The exciting thing is that I get to direct how this goes. I’m looking forward to some more self-direction. I valued it when I did my masters and so I’m looking forward to it now in this different context.

The other sort of language learning is what I’ll call random. In this model, I’m aiming not only to practice and become more fluent in what I know. But I’m also aiming to glean new things as I come across them in different situations, where I haven’t prepared. I see this occurring around lunches, during sport, in casual conversations. I’ll learn just by being there, rather than by being prepared. So as well as planning and setting goals, part of my language learning time will be planning just to be there, immersing in a different way.

This is a shot from the role play I wrote as part of a in-class presentation that I gave in Khmer.

Where am I up to after a year and a bit of language, after 40 weeks of full time language school? The short answer is: I’ve come a long way, but I’ve got an even longer way to go. A more specific question is what’s changed in this last 6 months on from my last update?

Conversations:

Arriving in Cambodia early last year, I had almost no Khmer. Now I’m attempting conversations in Khmer and these conversations are moving beyond the basic fact finding questions of personal data (age, family, work etc). Though I still need to learn much more vocab, I’m finding now that I’m using strategies to keep conversations going, even without having the vocab. This is one major difference between my conversational abilities now and even 5 months ago. 5 months ago, once I asked a quick question and got a quick answer, it was hard to move beyond that point. Sometimes we were just left awkwardly standing there, like one of those scenes everyone fears at a party when the conversation dies. Now with a bit more language what I’m finding is that I have more topics to turn to in general chit chat. A break through in shooting-the-breeze came recently. I’d been struggling to work out what to talk about when I meet up with a friend, beyond the personal data that I’d found out first time I meet with someone. It came as an off hand remark in a seminar, but I’ve found it really helpful. Easy go-to topics in Cambodia are “where have you been?” Or “where are you going?” Through to “have you eaten?” Or “how are family members (either where are they or how are they doing)?” This has given me a couple of topics that I can use as I seek to build my conversational skills.

Content:

The result of my language learning so far is that in general day to day life I can function doing simple tasks and having simple conversations in Khmer, conveying some information and understanding some things as well. What this means is that I’m understanding more content on a regular basis. In a recent update, I shared that more often than not I got a sense of the topic that Khmers were talking to me about. Now I don’t just get a sense of the general topic, but I get a sense of the general point they are making about that topic. I’m understanding more conversational content. I still miss many of the details, but I get the general topic and the general point about that topic.

This doesn’t always occur across the board in every conversation and it can often vary based on how quickly Khmer is being spoken (often in conversation it seems to go at machine gun rate) as well as other factors (like background noise and the topic of conversation). But more often than not I’m understanding a decent amount of content. Some of this improvement in understanding more content has come through practice (having similar conversations), some through increased vocab (in my vocab app I have about 2000 words) and some has come through an ability to use questions and responses to check I’ve understood or hear that they’ve understood me.

Confidence:

6 months ago I was hoping to improve my conversation abilities and fluency. And looking back even in the last 6 months I’ve seen that happen. The result is that I’m trying to put myself in more and more situations where I need to use my Khmer and I’ve got more confidence — not confidence to get it right, but confidence just to give it a go and learn something. That’s how I would summarise my conversation ability: confidence to have a go. The result is that I get to practice what I do know and in each conversation I have the chance to learn something new to add to my language arsenal.

One story before I move to reading and writing. Sam and I recently looked at one of my first videos where I tried a bit of Khmer (it was in the first month of arriving here). One of the ways I can see improvement in my Khmer is that as I listen to it again, I cringe. While I gave it a good crack for only being here 1 month, I can now see how my pronunciation was wrong and I can see how I’ve improved in this last year. I’m sure there will be more of that happening as I continue to look back.

In terms of reading and writing, I’m feeling much more comfortable writing and even writing small paragraphs of text. My vocab and reading ability will help improve my writing beyond this, but I’m happy with where my writing is up to. As I finished up with my language school, we were encouraged to keep up our writing if we wanted to keep it. Like a lot of skills, if you don’t use it you lose it. So this is my goal. But more about that in the next post. In terms of reading, while I’m progressing, one of the main difficulties is that my vocab is holding me back. As I add more words to the mix, I think this will help free up my reading. And in this next stage, as you’ll see in the next post, there will be more opportunities for reading.

Writing our first names

Can you guess who is who?

Below is another visual representation of where my language is up to since the last update .

First he blah blah for breakfast, then after blah blah blah he arrived at work. He told blah blah blah blah. Good work not enough but still need to have help with selling. At the market he bought fruit and veges he thought blah blah blah and so he could only get 1 mango as they were expensive and he wanted an ice cream. He didn’t like the veges and so he went and played soccer with his friends blah blah blah blah blah (by this stage I’m lost and so I get less and less) blah blah home blah blah blah family, brothers and sisters, friends blah dinner, sleep blah blah blah.

So where is my language learning up to now? Earlier this year I passed an exam which identified me at the level of being able to get the main topic of a conversation. I now feel I have more ability in getting the main idea, whereas before I was more just hearing connecting phrases (and, so, then, but etc). However, I’m still left guessing from context and other cues about what is actually being said about that topic. This is a start. The task now is to grow in my listening ability which includes using other listening tactics more, like listening for emotion and body language, to guess what is being said about a topic. You could sum up my listening abilities currently as an educated guess. Picture me having a 3 year old’s vocabulary and listening ability and you’ll have me pinned.

What this means for conversation is that I have the foundations set. I feel much more confident with fairly mundane questions and answers about myself and others (family info, where I live in Phnom Penh and how long I’ve been here). What’s next is taking those educated guesses and exposing myself to lots of conversations. Only, the trick is not to go for perfect understanding, but more … going for the gist, the vibe, the mabo.

The danger at this stage is that I’ll want to work out each little bit that I don’t understand. While clarity is a good thing to have, stopping at each point that I don’t understand will slow conversations down to the point of non-existence. That is, if I get so fixated on one detail I’ll actually miss the chance of experiencing conversations. One fellow language learner, who is a few modules ahead, affirmed this ‘guessing’ over ‘stopping’ approach. What I miss in trying to understand every new word is the bigger picture–the forest gets lost for the trees. So I need a bit more ambiguity tolerance required here as I listen.

Last time felt that my listening was far worse than my speaking. That may be the case. What I think is far more likely is that I probably had an over-inflated sense of my speaking ability. What I feel like now is that I’m starting to get to the point where I understand more when I listen, but now don’t have the words or ability to express similarly to what I am hearing. So that’s where my listening and speaking is up to.

But wait… there’s more now… I’m not just listening and speaking.

I’ve also started to learn the alphabet and some basic reading rules. The trickiness is that learning new reading rules for a new alphabet is like a double whammy. It’s not like I’m just learning a new maths equation that I can apply to a number system (1,2,3…etc) that I know so well. It’s like trying to learn a new rule for a completely different number system that is still quite new to me–so which order do ថ​តេរតសដថងសង​ go in? My brain is doubly strained. First I’m trying to remember the new rule and then trying to apply it to a system that is not familiar either. Weak consonants follow strong consonants, but which ones are the weak ones again and which are the strong?

On a more positive language note, I’ve been noticing that as I use more Khmer phrases at home, my kids are picking some of these up. They can ask for things in Khmer and describe their preferences. But far above anything else, my kids all love to say ‘no’ to me in Khmer. Another positive is that my pronunciation seems to be improving. A friend of mine commented on my clear pronunciation (a product of our school). On the family side, my kids are no longer pulling me up on saying the number ‘one’ incorrectly–within two weeks of us arriving in Cambodia they knew that I was mispronouncing ‘one’. So either I’ve improved in my pronunciation or they’ve given up correcting me. Both are possibilities.

What I’m looking forward to about the next few modules is working at increasing my fluency in both reading and conversations. Part of this will come through practice–in a sense doing what I can do now, but slightly better and slightly faster. It feels like these first four modules have given me the basics and now its time to build on them.

Another thing that has happened in my current module at language school is that the teachers have phased out the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). Not completely, as I’m sure I’ll still use it in some way. But now we are being taught new words in Khmer script, rather than using the IPA. This means I rely heavily on remembering the Khmer script.

Finally, my Khmer will improve as I build my Khmer word vocabulary. I currently have about 1000 words in my vocab that are usable. I’m back at the daily ANKI¹ slog (which I love). I remember someone saying, somewhere, that to read a newspaper in a foreign language you need about 2000-3000 words. This is what I’m aiming for by the end of the year or by the beginning of next year.

So that’s roughly where I’m up to. The result of all this is that I’m really enjoying the interactions I’m able to have with locals as I build relationships and seek to point them towards Christ in not only my actions, but also in my Khmer.