We've been taking two Swahili classes a week and practicing with each other and Kenyan friends when we can. I, however, I'm trying to unlearn some mistakes I made early on. I shared my embarrassment with some girlfriends back home, but decided sharing is caring and who doesn't want to hear a funny story about Laura's laments when language learning?!
So, taken straight from my email home...
"And in other news, I have the uncanny ability to turn an innocent Swahili word into something a little less polite. Our second lesson in, I mispronounced the word 'house' and instead of saying 'I like my house', I announced that 'I like my flatulence'. Our poor teacher was so embarrassed as she corrected me, and to my horror it appears my brain is permanently unable to get that word right and almost every class I've made the same mistake.
If that's not bad enough, I also mispronounced the word 'drinking' and instead shared with the class 'I am pooing tea'. Seriously, what is wrong with me?! Asides from those two highly embarrassing mistakes, Swahili is fun to learn - easier than French and there are a lot of opportunities to practice each day."
So there we go, friends. However, you should know there are a bunch of other great Swahili words we are mastering, like pilipili hoho (capsicum) - how cool a word is that?
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