I've been in a foreign country for almost one year. I change my mind often as to whether I'm making progress. My language has improved in some ways, like vocabulary and stuff, but I only know how to say really simple sentences still. A really big difference between a written language and a spoken language is informal speech. Every language has it, but I guess I'm just saying that makes the learning curve much more difficult. I wish I could give some examples but you'd just have to be here to get it. I actually have learned English better while I've been here too. I wouldn't know what you were talking about if you brought up 1st conditionals, and 2nd conditionals, verb tenses, etc, before I got here. Verbs might take the prize for being the most discouraging part for someone trying to learn English as a foreign language. Not only are there irregular verbs, but there are participles – which don't really have a helpful function other than “sounding” better. Mongolian isn't an easy language, but it has more consistent patterns than English. I really love English though – there are so many books throughout history and from so many cultures and most of them are available in English. Though it is a long ways away, its possible that the people who I am working with will some day be able to pick up an English and imagine the same wonderful thoughts that I have had through the medium of English literature. I have caught a glimpse of some Mongolian folktales and proverbs and they are really enjoyable too. I have more learning material than I can handle actually. There's only so much time to study it. Its pretty funny discovering something that is worded differently than you would expect. For example, a cup and a bowl are the exact same word. Grapes are literally “water grapes,” whereas in English we sometimes call raisins “dried grapes.” I also thought it was funny that a boat is called a “water plane” and then I realized that the English word “spaceship” is equally strange. I think its brilliant that a dictionary in Mongolian is a “word mirror.” Um, what else? There's probably a whole lot more, but I don't notice them anymore because I'm used to them. Mongolian actually has some very logical words that people might even be able to guess. Someone probably wouldn't be able to come up with the word for tongs used in fireplaces, but the Mongolian term for it is “fire-scissors.” English has compound nouns, but some of them don't make sense. (butterfly?) Back to the practical use of speaking Mongolian, sometimes I pretend that I know more than I do – and once in a while I get away with it. Also, I sometimes pretend that I don't know Mongolian and am able to eavesdrop quite successfully. When I am walking around town, I occasionally overhear people talk about me (either pointing out that I'm Russian (lol) or identifying who I am and where I work). In class, I usually claim ignorance as well, and sometimes I hear students say stuff like “Oh Good, Will's teaching us today.”
