Electronic Flash Cards

One of the best language learning resources I've used so far is a computer program called Vocabulary Manager, which can be downloaded for free from SIL's website. In essence, this program allows you to create and practice words and phrases as if they were flashcards on your screen and classify your data in folders and subfolders.

Taking the example of "Food," I could create a subfolder for "Beverages" and make an entry for 'water.' Since I'm learning Garifuna via Spanish, my common language with people here, I would put 'agua' as my reference gloss and 'duna' for the orthographic representation in Garifuna. I can also include additional info in a "Modify Note" option, such as grammatical gender (masculine, in this case) or additional meanings and senses (such as "also means 'river').

Next, I input a sound recording of 'duna,' after editing and selecting it with Speech Analyzer, another SIL program handy for sound editing and phonetic analysis. Finally, I add an image, usually found on Google images or from my own personal photos. Now I have an electronic flashcard for 'water.'

As I build my database, I can add phrases and, wherever applicable, use images that invoke my sense when I hear the word and see how it's written, reinforcing the vocabulary in my mind. I can also select the words I want to review and test for comprehension (hearing the word and clicking on the correct picture). This has been incredibly useful since I don't live in a Garifuna community. When I visited Fernando and his family for the holidays in 2009, his cousin kindly recorded dozens of words for me, which I began learning with Vocabulary Manager in the U.S. before returning to Honduras.

What I like to do now is write down new words I encounter in conversations and songs, and then look them up in the Garifuna dictionary to ensure accurate spelling, as well as grammatical and etymological information (such as if the word was borrowed from English, French, or Spanish). Fernando records the list for me, and I edit individual words and create entries to study on my own. I can listen as many times I need, isolate more difficult words and phrases, without tiring a native speaker. In this way, I've learned many words this past year.

If you know of anyone who is independently/informally learning a language, this program might be a big help to them!

Some things I've learned about using pictures to learn vocab:

1. Include a picture that shows both the inside and outside of objects, such as this pineapple (and think about how it smells, feels, and tastes when listening to the word, 'yéyewa'):

2. For abstract words, use a picture that represents the idea to you personally. This picture is what I think of for the word 'life,' 'ibagari.'

3. If a real picture would be highly unpleasant or inappropriate, use a cartoon:

'wéibayawa' (an animal I dislike!)

'ágawa' (I prefer a funny animal picture or cartoon for 'bathe' rather than a real picture!)

4. Humor goes a long way for memorization! Remembering funny pictures helps bring a word to mind in the moment I need it for communicating in real life.

'magualiti' ('lazy')


'gurasun' ('courage')

Águru (Scorpion)

Happy New Year! I will now be able to blog more often, having gotten married (woohoo!) and had a few weeks to emerge from the massive pile of tasks I put to the side during wedding prep and graduate work.

I'm enjoying the benefits of having my personal language teacher as a roommate! 24/7 free consultation services (well, I do give him a break now and then)! One thing we do together is read Scripture in both Garifuna and either Spanish or English. He's also helped me transcribe songs, record new words and phrases, and clarify some of the grammatical haze in my brain.

Another good language learning adventure this month was attending a Christian Garifuna women's conference in a remote community where Fernando's family is from. I was surrounded by the language for 4 days and was warmly welcomed by many women. Since this was the 4th trip out there, I felt really comfortable, and I could converse much more this time than before. Yay!

Nothing helps a learner retain new words more then a striking experience involving the senses. The most notable new word was 'águru' ('scorpion'). I woke up at 3:00am when I was stung three times. I not only learned how to be treated (eat sugar and heat the affected area), but I got to hear words like 'luti' ('swollen') and 'gariti' ('pain') and repeat them in my head while the symptoms persisted the next day. So, in the end, it was a successful language and culture learning experience!

Soon I will talk about a computer program I use to learn new words, combining sound files and pictures (electronic flashcards), such as this:

Sunha! (Finished!)

I have not forgotten about this blog! I've been buried under graduate work and wedding plans. I just finished the last project for the semester: a description of imperatives in Garifuna (let me know if you want to take a peek). I plan on blogging more starting in January, so, until then, Merry Christmas and darí amu irumu (see you next year)!

Atúriahani (Studying)

I haven't posted much lately because I've been busy with an online master's degree program in applied linguistics that began recently. It's through the University of Massachusetts, and language learning is one of the central parts. I think it will be useful for teaching, missions, and my own language learning, which all tie together. One good thing is that I get to study Garifuna for some of my classwork.

The first class is applied linguistics. Not everyone in the program has a background in the field, so it's an introductory course, but aimed toward language learning and language teachers. One of my projects for this class is fieldwork in Garifuna. I'm looking at how imperative verbs (commands) work: intransitive, transitive, affirmative, negative, singular, plural, etc.

My second class is about cross-cultural perspectives. We have to spend time in a cross-cultural context, take field notes, and write a paper about several cultural themes. Since I get to interact with Garifuna friends in their homes, at Bible study, at church, etc., I can focus on some areas of interest and write about them.

My third class is about bilingual/multicultural education, and we are required to observe and write about some kind of program along these lines. There are Garifuna classes at an elementary school in a nearby community, and I'm hoping it works out to do my observations there.

My "cohort" ("classmates") and I have online discussion forums, so I get to share my experiences and learn from others. I'm still figuring out time management; the advantage is that I can program my own hours each week. I've done a lot of work today, so now I get to reward myself reviewing Garifuna verbs in a computer program. =) More on that next time. =)

Ábouguni (Cooking)

One of the most effective language and culture learning activities I've been using is cooking with Garifuna women. One advantage is hearing words and phrases repeatedly with minor variations: "Add salt," "Add a little onion," "We're going to boil it," "We're going to stir it," etc. I know a lot of kitchen vocabulary, so hearing it in a context while I complete an action reinforces what I know and helps me absorb small amounts of new information.


Another benefit is that doing an activity together reduces mental fatigue for me and patience depletion for the other person (!!!). =) It kind of takes the pressure off of conversations. Plus, I get to overhear what women say to their children, to other people who stop by, or even to themselves ("Where did I put ___?"). This is much more natural than explicitly asking how to say these expressions.


As some of you know, cooking has never been my forté. Furthermore, with a new array of ingredients available here (add yuca, for example, and take away CHOCOLATE CHIPS - sigh...) and cooking approaches (forget recipes, just call an older or sister or cousin if needed), I can use all the help available! It is a lot of fun and makes me think a Garifuna cookbook might be a fun project someday.

I thought I'd show you some of the things I've learned to make.



(The picture is not mine.) This is a typical meal of fried fish (úduraü), fried plantains (baruru), and rice and beans (literally called "rice and beans" in Garifuna). The hardest part is cleaning the fish (afúleihani), but the rest is easy: you just cut slits in the sides and put salt there before frying them. After almost losing a thumbnail, I can finally do a decent job slicing plantains. To make rice and beans, you season and boil the beans, and then add the residual water plus coconut milk (instead of water) to cook the rice, and you add the rest of the beans at the end. Sunha! (Done!)


This is tapado, a coconut soup with fish, ripe plantains, cooked green bananas, yuca, and spices.



Finally, I have to show a new cookie recipe I've found (cookies are typically the only edible thing I make). Step one is buying darara, yuca flour, at the local market (completing the transaction in Garifuna, of course). Then you just add a bit of salt (salu), an egg (gañéin), sugar (súgara), and oil (agüle), roll and flatten the dough into the size you want, and bake it. You might imagine the intended recipient of the cookies in the picture (my official tastetester).

Biama líburu (Two Books)

I've been using a variety of helpful resources to learn more Garifuna, one of the best being this dictionary:

As you can see, one of the authors happens to be my favorite person of all time. Another bonus is that the dictionary is trilingual: Garifuna, Spanish, and English. (There are Garifuna people who live in Belize and in the United States, and some don't speak Spanish.)

When I hear a new word in a conversation, I look it up later, or sometimes I want to refresh my mind of a useful term I still can't remember easily.

In Garifuna, nouns and corresponding modifiers have gender agreement. This is found in many languages, such as Spanish and French. ("La casa es blanca." "El perro es blanco.") When I learn new words, I make sure to remember the gender so I can use them properly.

Another fun and useful component is the etymology of borrowed words. For example, if I want to know the word for "window," I find that it is "funedere," taken from the French word, "fenêtre." This helps me remember it as well as understand the sound system better.

Just for fun, let's look up "suddenly": "sódini," with the etymology note showing it somes from the English word. Nice to know!

The word for "paper" is "gárada," which comes from "carta" in Spanish.

And one last example is "ereba," the traditional cassava bread (more about this in a future post). This food is common among South American indigenous groups. For those of you familiar with northern South America, you know about the "arepa," a thick corn tortilla that is a main part of diet and prepared in many ways. Both come from the same word in Arawak.

I love this dictionary and use it frequently, as you can tell by the picture! It was a long, tedious process for those who compiled it, and now it saves me a lot of work in language learning!

The second book I use is the Bible in Garifuna:

Garifuna is one of only 451 languages in the world with a translation of the entire Bible (many languages only have the New Testament and portions of the Old Testament, and many more still have no Scripture). Fernando was part of the translation team, and the project took years of work. Here is a portion from Psalms:

Every week at church, someone reads a passage and the sermon is given in Garifuna. We also use the Bible for the Bible story project. When L, the story crafter, needs to hear a certain verse to make sure she's telling something correctly, I look it up for her and read it. This helps me learn the language and also allows me to understand new details about familiar passages.

I hear people say how much better the Bible sounds to them in Garifuna, and I certainly feel the same about English. It's a good reminder to thank God for what we have and pray and support the effort for others to have God's Word in their own language!

Úraga lau garifuna (Stories in Garifuna)

I recently attended a workshop about crafting and telling Bible story sets for oral cultures. Stories are then taught in home groups where people can discuss them and learn to retell them.

One of these projects is underway in Garifuna. I was hoping to help in some way after acquiring a better grasp of the language (i.e., LATER). Well, two weeks ago I was invited to help with a new story set being crafted in Garifuna! "What?! I don't feel ready, but here we go!" Of course I wanted to help!

I'm working with a Garifuna woman (L) and a missionary (M) to produce a set of 12 stories about women in the Bible. So far, we have one about Eve and another about Sarah. Now we're working on the story of Ruth.

My job is to help L, the story crafter. First, I record the Bible verses about the story. If she were to read it herself, it would limit her ability to tell the story naturally. Usually I read in Spanish, but, if nobody else is available, I read in Garifuna (it's painful for both of us - ha!).

Then, I type the transcription in a Google documents template, together with the corresponding verses. Everything told must be "anchored" in Scripture.

When L feels good about the draft, we go visit Garifuna women with little or no Bible background. We have one person translate the story into Spanish so we can check for difficult terms (like "covenant" or "blessing") and reword awkward parts. Then we have at least two people retell the story after hearing it several times to gauge how reproducible it is. We also ask questions to find out how well the story is understood.

After we compile this information, we send it to a consultant, who checks for any necessary revisions.

Throughout the process, I hear the stories over and over and OVER again, which introduces me to new vocabulary and word/sentence structures, and reinforces what I've already learned. My favorite part is visiting people! I love how they hear God's Word in a new way, and it is fun to get to know more women by conversing in their language!

Please pray for those who hear the stories and for us as we move forward with the project.