Talking the talk
Foreign-language public speaking - the hard way, by Pete Maycock
Pete Maycock, a BMS World Mission worker in Thailand, tells of how even the most timid of language students may be called on to do more foreign-language public speaking than they expect, or like!
Learning a foreign language is no easy thing. I realised that much while I was at school studying GCSE French! So we were pleasantly surprised when we managed to pick up Thai relatively quickly on our arrival in Thailand in 2004.
Imagine our dismay, then, when we discovered that effective ministry among the Karen people involved learning another, completely different language in addition to Thai! The five tones of Thai are not the same as the six Karen tones, and there are several new consonants, an entirely different script and of course an entire dictionary of vocabulary to pick up!
Progress with Karen language study has been hard and slow - which can be very frustrating. We've struggled to find time, energy and space in our brains to fit in the extra information. So it's great when we have opportunities to practise and use what we do know, and I try to introduce myself in Karen whenever I'm invited to speak in churches and youth groups. However, this can backfire, as I discovered a few weeks ago!
At a meeting of about 800 Karen Christians, I was asked to say a few words of greeting - and they meant 'few' literally, as the preacher had talked for over an hour already, and time was running out. I nervously pulled together all of my Karen phrases and managed to string together a passable paragraph or so of heavily accented Karen.
That night, I went to sleep feeling quite pleased with myself on my successful language achievement. Little did I know that before dawn of the next day, a small crowd would be gathered outside the house I was staying in. Now that there were no time constraints, they had come to listen to the missionary preach at length in Karen! I felt awful as I had to confess to the expectant faces that, actually, I had already exhausted all of my Karen!
In my French classroom at school, I would often cower behind my Tricolore textbook, hoping fervently that the teacher's eye would pass over to some other victim - but here in Thailand, there really is nowhere to hide!
Pete and his wife Lizz live in Chiang Mai, where they support youth leaders among the Karen people.
13/08/2009
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