We finally finished learning all 6 cases in language school, just yesterday.

What this means is, with a little more understanding and grasp on this language, I could, in effect speak Slovak fluently. This is the closest I’ve ever been to understanding a language. I speak in somewhat broken Slovak, you know SSL (Slovak as second language). But, I don’t know if I’ve ever given you a sampling of what we learn in class, so I though I’d maybe type up an excerpt in the book of what we’re reading and translating.

Tak, kone?ne som zasa tu. Devätnásteho septembra mi prišiel email. Otec pisal, že mama je chorá a musí ís? na operáciu. Ráno som musela íst na fakultu na potom na pliciu po viyum. Potom som si kúpila letenku a taxíkom som išla na letisko. Cestovala som najprv do Prahy. Musela som odle tie? dvadsiateho prvého, lebo dalšie lietadlo lei až o týžde?. škoda, že letenkz z Viedne už boli vzpredané - zo Schwetchatu lieta lietadlo každy de?.

Kinda crazy for me to see that I understand this whole paragraph. Wild. So, don’t be surprised when I venture back to America if I throw some Slovak into our conversations. Some that might come up in a convo with me:

hej - yeh

myslim - I think

tak že - so that

rozumiem - I understand

?o? - what?

pre?o? - why?

toto - this

?o je to? - what is it?

no - yes (hopefully this one won’t ruin anything for me)

potom - later, after, then

?aj - tea

prosim - please

zajimavae - interesting

I’m sure I’ll have fun teaching everyone as much as you want to learn, get ready.

Sometimes we have fun in language. This was one of those days. Here we are as Aaron gives an example of a Bob’s furniture commercial. Bobovi Nabytok = Bob’s Furniture. Another favorite from the year: Tom Bradyho (the Super Bowl) and Tracy Turnbladova (Hairspray).

[language school vid embedded below, also available here]

Bobovi Nabytok from Kelly on Vimeo.

The following verses have a completely new meaning to me, especially in the first sentence or two - if I knew every language without learning them, given the toil and sacrifice of hours my team is making to learn Slovak, and the difficulty of understanding cases and adjective endings and future tense and past tense and koho/?o, and all of the vocabulary. But what if I automatically knew all of these things without having to learn it, it would mean absolutely nothing without love.

If I had the gift of being able to speak in other languages without learning them and could speak in every language there is in all of heaven and earth, but didn’t love others, I would only be making noise. If I had the gift of prophecy and knew all about what is going to happen in the future, knew everything about everything but didn’t love others, what good would it do? Even if I had the gift of faith so that I couls speak to a mountain and make it move, I would still be worth nothing at all without love. If I gave everything I have to poor people, and if I were burned alive for preaching the Gospel but didn’t love others, it would be of no value whatsoever.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3