language class.

We are Chiang Mai for a language intensive, and that means our lives are consumed in Burmese.

We attend class for just two to three hours a day, but we then study an additional four to eight more hours, depending on what we can muster up. We are reviewing vocabulary and flashcards, writing sentences, listening to audio, writing transcripts, reading documents, writing responses.

Does that sound as tiring as it is?

Other than thousands of vocabulary words and grammar rules, I wouldn’t mind forgetting most of the experience.

And the other things that I want to remember involve Stephen, because he makes everything in my life much, much better. And funnier.

We found CAMP: a study center just down the road from our class and a large university in Chiang Mai. You can get coffee or snacks, or just sit, for as many hours as you’d like. I absolutely love it and we have spent many-an-hour (and day) studying there. The first day, I told Stephen it felt like we were back at university. He replied, “We are. It’s just much, much HARDER.” That is very, very true.

Our teacher is an elderly British man than has studied and taught Burmese language for nearly fifty years. He’s great, except for one phrase: nasal seepage.  He uses this to describe when the Burmese pronunciation changes because syllables run together. Nothing can make me sicker faster than someone talking about nasal seepage. Or any kind of seepage, most likely.

We did take one day last week to celebrate Stephen’s birthday over a trip to few local music shops, a movie, and dinner out. He’s the best.

And last–he’s hilarious in language. He is by the far the most dedicated and organized language learner. He has system upon system and will study for hours upon hours.

But he absolutely hates being called on in class; he sort of panics and struggles to respond to things he knows so well.

And yet, the other evening, we’d been giving homework to transcribe a short recording. We had listened through it and were trying to pick it apart word-for-word and type in out correctly. At one point, he was adamant about a phrase. Our conversation went like this:

S: There is a ye in there. I can hear it!
K: But which one? Which ye makes sense in that sentence? It’s not possessive or “water” or “write.”
{These are all different tones of ye.}
S: But it’s there.
K: How do we spell it for the transcription? Why is it there? Could it be another word? Why say, “Ne gaun ye la?”
S: I don’t know. But I know it’s there. And I know I say that to the neighbors. Ne gaun ye la; ne gaun ye la. We say that! I know it’s there.

After searching through notes and dictionaries, we put in the ye with a guessed spelling.  We decided to we’d ask the next day for an explanation {even though sometimes he deems certain questions ridiculous and this might be in this category, welcoming ridicule}.

So we are sitting in class and following along, and I whisper to Stephen that I’m going to ask about the ye so we can figure it out. I raise my hand and ask. The teacher repeats the question and asks if anyone knows why this is there?

At this point, Stephen raises his hand, nearly jumping out of his chair. I am now looking at him with absolute absurdity, as he tells the teacher the specific grammar of why ye is in there. If you’re curious, it’s to ask a question expecting a negative answer, or to push for a genuine response. The teacher was duly impressed at him knowing so specifically. I was super confused.

Our teacher was confused, too, since we do our homework together and somehow I was asking a question he was answering. After class, we had this conversation:

K: “What happened? We looked up spellings and definitions and talked through every version of the word ye last night, and you said absolutely none of this!”
S: “Yeah, I didn’t know it then. But as soon as you asked the question it all came back really quick.”

So random. I don’t understand him at all, but I’m glad we can laugh together in the {dare I say, miserable} adventure of language learning!