Today we had our first chance to practice learning a foreign language through a real language helper. Our helper, David, is from Bangladesh, so the language we are using for this practice is Bangla (Bengali). For now, we are focusing on analyzing the sounds of the language (we'll get into the grammar later on), so we asked David to give us various Bangla words, and then we transcribed them in phonetic symbols, as we had learned to do during our Phonetics class last month. It was so exciting to transcribe words from a real language with real meanings, instead of the made-up words we had used in class! All those hours of painstaking transcription work in Phonetics class is finally bearing fruit!
Along with this work in the Bangla language, we are also getting an overview of literacy methods. I am not a literacy specialist, but literacy is a vital part of Bible translation ministry, so it is important for me to understand what is involved.
We have much to learn in the next two weeks, so I appreciate your prayers!
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