A day in the life of a language learner

We are now in unit two of studying Bahasa Indonesian. I thought you might like to get a sense of what our day is like.
5:30am I wake up to wash and get ready (other members up at 6am)
8:00am We start class and meet for four hours. We work on fluency, grammar, pronunciation,
vocabulary, etc.
12 noon We eat lunch
12:30pm We get right back to studying, typing new vocab in, working on our homework and
going out into our community to use what we learned that morning in conversation
with Indonesian neighbors and friends.
4:30pm The boys get home from school, at which point all language learning is suspended. :-)
5:00pm We eat dinner, unless Rick has soccer practice.
6:00pm We begin studying again and do so until bedtime.
9:30pm I go to sleep. In my mind words and phrases of Indonesian are buzzing. Lora goes to
sleep a little later.

The days of langauge learning are long and often frustrating. There have been many days of tears (Lora) and of hitting things (Andy). But as we look back on the last month and one week of learning, we have to admit that we HAVE learned. There is a long way to go, but we are making progress.

In the meantime we have made some friends in our neighborhood and in our school and among our colleagues. Sometimes we just need to get tother with fellow language learners and vent and laugh. That eases our stress.

That is a day in the life of a language learner.

Language mistake of the month: I said, "Saya mengambil perawat ke Makassar." Unfortunately that means, "I took a nurse to Makassar." The word for "airplane" is Pesawat. My instructor, after composing herself from a big laugh, said, "Hati-hati," "be careful."