Three days a week, I study Somali with my new dear friend, Zeinab and her "assistant" (her 6 month old baby girl, Marwa). It is so much fun! We are trying to do the "Growing Participator Approach" to language learning. The goal of GPA is to learn language like you would as a child. So you start out just listening and pointing at objects to learn their names and get familiar with the sounds. Then you move on to speaking. I started speaking Somali on Tuesday! I carefully listed the body parts with possessives attached (in Somali the word ending changes for feminine/masculine and for who possesses it) and Zeinab practically cheered. She was so excited that because of her, I went from knowing zero Somali to being able to say a whole list of things.
We make videos after she teaches me a new thing so that I can study, otherwise I would just forget everything from our lesson. Here is one of my favorite videos, because she talks to Marwa in the beginning. She is teaching me the conjugations of "to Have".
