Language

“How’s your Spanish?” was definitely among the top five questions people would ask when they heard about my El Salvador plans. My response was usually, “Not great. Ask me at the end of next year.” It is encouraging to see how quickly language comes in an immersion situation. After just over a month here, I can already understand most conversations, or at least pick out the important words. I can hold my own in restaurants, taxis, and shoe stores. Even on campus, talking with students, I can get pretty far in Spanish. Still, the word “immersion” feels so appropriate for the way it feels like everyone is talking underwater. If I work really, really hard I can understand, and make myself understood. But it is tiring work that can feel relentless.

One of the ways we share the gospel with students is with a tool called “Solarium.” It’s basically a set of 50 pictures that students use to answer five questions. The questions are things like, “Which three pictures that describe your life right now?” “Pick three pictures that describe what you would want your life to look like.” “Which picture would you use to describe God?” It is so interesting to see which pictures get picked over and over. There is a picture of little girl running through a park with a bunch of balloons in her hand. Everyone loves this picture.

Solarium is great on a spiritual level, because it seems people will tell you anything if they have a picture to pair it with. Art students tend to have especially deep and soulful answers. But it’s also great on a practical level, because if a student is holding the picture of the old couple walking hand in hand, they probably aren’t talking about their struggles with faith as a child. So, I sit there and listen with such intensity that sometimes it feels like I can hear my brain trying to process the words. I grab onto the phrases I know, and try to fill in the blanks quickly enough to nod in the right places.

I’ve learned to hide the fact that I’m usually only understanding half of any given response, depending on how fast the person is talking. It bothers people to be misunderstood, and when the national staff were still on campus with us, students would simply direct all conversation to the person who clearly understood them better. As soon as I started faking it, acting like I understood what was happening even if I had no clue, girls started opening up to me as well. If I really didn’t catch any of it, I could ask them to repeat it more slowly. Or I could simply say, “bueno,” and let it go at that.

This morning, I led a small group Bible study with six girls. As I fought through with terrible grammar, limited vocabulary, and awful pronunciation, I felt embarrassed and exhausted. These girls are studying engineering at the top university in the country. They are smart and well spoken. Not only that, they have cute clothes. And I can barely string a sentence together. But I’m learning that sometimes it doesn’t matter what I can’t say. In fact, sometimes it’s better when I don’t speak. I have a Bible in Spanish, and I know how to say, “Here, read this.” For now, that’s enough.