Pashto, week 9 ???

I had to do a double-take to verify this ... we're half-way through the training? Granted, I've come light-years into it so far but yet can barely speak about more than family, weather, and some basic daily or weekend routines. Not exactly riveting ...

Had a good conversation today with one of the directors (?) of DLS (whom is contracted by DLI to provide the language training). In our class (of 3 students), we've been asking more and more for things that the books have been unable to provide or provided poor (and/or contradictory) examples. Seems like they're in the process of fixing it ("yay!") and should have changes final by November ("boo!" as we are finished in June). However, they're attempting to modify things slightly for us, though I get the feeling we'll still be providing our own rudder to the flow. (This is really weird ... I've never been able to control my own training to this degree! Wish it weren't necessary but at least we have a strong say.)

We're working hard on verb tenses, something that has certainly taken pulling teach to get done. The hardest part, honestly, has been at times the language barrier. Figure that. For example, we finally convinced one of our instructors that it's alright (in fact, preferred) to answer a question about inconsistent verb conjugation with "it's an irregular verb, so memorize it". Last week we got into a lufbery (prolonged engagement) about a verb where he thought we were commenting that pashto is so inconsistent. Though the language is certainly inconsistent, he hadn't (yet) realized that we were talking about the conjugation itself.

We are also dealing with frequent frustrations with the vocab words they provide. For instance, a month or so ago we learned words for dog, cat, and (of all things) parrot. If parrots were an integral and pervasive part of Afghan culture perhaps I'd understand, but they aren't. Last week, we learned quail. Granted, we don't know how to say bird or even the verb to hunt yet. Neither word has been used in the examples they provide or in any conversation. We have, however, learned about exercise with spear; though there is certainly the not-so-popular afghan sport buzkashi, spears do not appear to be involved so I'm not certain what the relevance is.

Things are progressing. Tomorrow is my mid-term, a conversation with a yet-unnamed individual (internal to DLS) for 20-25 minutes, quite possibly on a phone. It's amazing how much of our communication (especially learning a different language) is visual. Though most of us are in fact NOT training for the test, we still feel a bit competitive (with ourselves) to do well. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) they will not be providing an assessment of our current speaking level (something they will do in June on our final test).

8 more weeks. Wish me luck.