Improving your language skills on the field, Missionary Preparation Tip #023

Language acquisition is a social activity as much as a classroom activity. This missionary to Belgium relays how he and his wife came up with a creative way to bond to their new community.

TRANSCRIPT`

Improving your language skills on the mission field

How did you improve your language skills on the field?

We were in Belgium. And in Belgium, you really have to earn your right to be heard. A missionary doesn't come with this badge that says, "This is a great teacher and you should listen to him." You really come on the bottom of the rung and you have to work your way up through just being faithful and serving the Lord, and little by little then you gain credibility. So that's another one of the difficult things, especially in Western Europe. Sometimes I think some Westerners go into other countries and they automatically have a lot of credibility and a lot of opportunities, where there, you really have to kind of work your way up and gain their respect and their trust.

Well, one of the things that's very important is really getting a good grasp of the language and culture. And so, we had studied French before arriving in Belgium, but we still had a lot more to learn. And what we did was to — there were two problems. We needed more French, to learn more French. But we also needed a way to get into the lives of Belgian people. And Belgian people are very private. They have — it's kind of a stereotype, but — a few close friends and then their extended family, and that's about it. And so, really, to get into the lives of other people is very difficult.

So what we did: We just put an ad in the paper, and said we were Americans, we were looking for people who would be happy to help us learn French, or to improve our French, and in exchange for help in English. And we had a lot of people who responded. And many of them would say, "Well, no one else responded, right? Because this is not Belgian, what you did." But fortunately, that was a way that the Lord just opened the door for us to be able to get into the lives of Belgians and to really begin to learn more of their language and culture. For that first year, it's critical just to be able to really identify with the culture and the language and the people, and then begin to have a love for them as well.

Credits:
Produced by Mission Data International
Video Editor: Paul Nielsen
Cameraman: Peter Armstrong

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2011 Mission Data International
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2011 Mission Data International

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