There Is One Person I Want To Talk To

She has been spoken to in your language, in her own kitchen, for eleven years.

She stands at that counter and you sit at that table and everything that passes between you goes through somebody else, or through the two hundred words of yours that she has assembled since she came, which is enough for the weather and the children and whether you would like more.

She is warm with you. There has never been a difficulty. She puts a hand on your shoulder going past and she has fed you every Sunday for a decade.

And you have never once had a conversation with her.

Not a real one. Not the kind where somebody tells you what they thought about something, or what it was like, or what they are actually worried about. Eleven years of being welcomed by somebody you do not know.

And she knows things. There is a whole life behind that woman that you have received in fragments, secondhand, translated by somebody in a hurry at a table.

That is what this is for. Not travel, not work, not a level, not a certificate.

One person, in one kitchen, on a Sunday.

And here is what I want to say at the top, because everything you have read about learning a language assumes something different about you.

You are not trying to become fluent.

Every course, every app, every plan is built around a destination where you can hold your own in that language generally, and it is measured in levels, and it takes years, and you are forty something with a job.

You are trying to talk to one woman about specific things. That is a much smaller target and it is completely different in shape, and almost nothing you have read is aimed at it.

Thy people shall be my people

There is a sentence in Ruth that is often read at weddings, and it was said by a woman crossing into somebody else's language.

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. (Ruth 1:16, King James Version)

Thy people shall be my people.

Ruth is a Moabite. Naomi is going home to Bethlehem, to another country, with another language, another set of customs, and a people who had reason to look at a Moabite woman sideways.

And Ruth goes with her.

Now notice what the whole thing is for.

Not for the people. Not for the land, not for the religion in the abstract. Every clause in that sentence is addressed to one woman: whither thou goest, where thou lodgest, thy people, thy God. The largest crossing in that book is made for one specific human being standing in front of her.

And it is worth remembering how thoroughly that would have involved a language. She arrives in a town where she does not speak the way anybody speaks. She works in a field where people talk about her in a language she is still learning. Boaz has to be told who she is, because she is visibly and audibly from somewhere else.

The Bible does not narrate her lessons. It narrates the relationship, and the language is simply what she went through to be with the person she went with.

That is the shape of what you are doing, and it is not the shape of a course.

The largest crossing in that book is made for one specific person, and the language has never once been the thing being aimed at. Ruth 1:16 addresses every clause of it to one woman standing in front of her, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody who has been welcomed for eleven years by a woman he does not know.

What you actually need is small

Here is the practical half, and it is a change of target.

You do not need the language. You need about forty sentences.

Think about what you actually want to say to her, and what you want to be able to understand. It is not general. It is a short and very specific list.

You want to ask her about the place she is from and understand roughly what she says back. You want to be able to say that you are glad she is there. You want to be able to tell her what you thought of the food, in a way that is more than a gesture. You want to ask her one real question about her mother.

That is a narrow set, and it has perhaps two hundred words in it, and it is achievable in months rather than years.

A course cannot give you that, because a course has to serve everybody, so it teaches you to book a room and describe your job and ask where the station is. You will never use any of it in that kitchen.

So the thing to learn is not lesson six. It is the sentence you would actually say to her on Sunday, learned as a whole, without necessarily understanding every part of how it is built.

That is how children do it and how travelers do it, and it is unfashionable in language teaching, and it works, and it is exactly right for a man with one person and a limited number of Sundays.

And here is the part that matters most, and it is the thing to hold on to when it feels like cheating.

The mixed conversation is not a stage on the way to a real one. It is the real one.

You say a prepared sentence in hers. She answers in hers, and you catch some of it. You reply in yours. She answers in her two hundred words of yours. Both of you understand each other and both of you are doing the work.

That is a conversation between two people who are reaching, and it is worth more than a grammatically clean exchange in one language, and there are households all over the world where that is simply how people talk to each other.

What you need is forty sentences aimed at one person, and the mixed conversation has never once been a stage on the way to a real one. The written word narrates the relationship and leaves the language as what somebody went through to be with her, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with a man who wants to ask one woman about her mother.

One prepared sentence, and the rest in English

So here is the assignment, and the second half is the permission.

Say one prepared sentence to that person, and let the rest of it be in English.

One sentence. Prepare it properly this week: choose it, find out how it is said, practice it until it is comfortable in your mouth.

And make it a real one. Not hello and not how are you, which are gestures and which she has heard from you before. Something with content: thank you for feeding us every Sunday. Or: I would like to learn how you make that. Or: tell me about the town you were born in.

Say it on Sunday, at that counter, to her.

And then let the whole rest of the conversation be in English.

That is the permission and it is the thing that makes this possible. You do not have to sustain anything. You are not opening a conversation in her language that you then have to survive. You say the sentence, you receive what comes back, and then everything carries on the way it always has.

And here is what will probably happen, and it is worth being ready for.

She may cry. Not sadness. Eleven years is a long time to be the one doing all the crossing in a room, and somebody coming toward her, even four words toward her, lands differently than you can imagine from your side.

She may answer at full speed, delighted, and you will catch almost none of it. Let that happen. Smile and let it wash over you and do not apologize for not following.

And she may correct you, and if she does, that is her teaching you, which is a thing she has probably wanted to do for eleven years.

One sentence. Then English. And the same again next week if you want to.

You are able to say one sentence and let the rest be in English, and this has never once required you to sustain anything. Ruth 1:16 makes the whole crossing for one person, and the Holy Spirit is the one present at a counter where four words have just been said in the right language.