Saturday, September 20, 2008

Oh, I'm so bad. A whole week- no blogs!

Let's see. Let me sum up the week in a few words.

Class. Phonetics. One sick girl. Waiting... waiting... waiting... boom- three sick girls...

That's the quick version.


This week in class we learned a little more about syllables, syllabics and stress in words. It is hard for our English tongues to learn to put stress on the second half of a word. Try saying, "sasa". You probably stressed the first syllable. Now stress the second half. There are many other combinations that could change the meaning of a word- stress on the first half, monotone. Stress on the second half, monotone. Stress on the second half, two tones- high, then low, etc... Many Asian countries have many tones in their languages. Thailand uses 5, Chinese Mandarin has six tones!


Yesterday we learned nasals. That was fun! M, n, "eng", "enye", and voiceless m, n, and "eng". At first I didn't think I had ever said a voiceless m. But then our teacher had us say, "M-hmm." That second m is voiceless, through your nose. Voiceless N is made the same way, except with your tongue on the back of the gum above your upper teeth (on your alveolar ridge). Basically you are breathing through your nose and doing your tongue like an m or n. "Eng" is made like the ng in sing.


Well, a busy day is ahead- it is the 40th anniversary of New Tribes Mission Canada Open House. There are all kinds of things going on today- exhibits, demonstrations, booths explaining how tribal missions work, etc. Dennis and I and the two older girls are heading up to live in Jungle Camp again for the day! Since our house was torn down we are going to be in our friends' place that was left up. Yesterday we went up there and got the clay stove going again. It was so fun to see smoke twirling up out of the stovepipe again! It looks to be a fun day! If any of you are in the area or have nothing to do today, come on by between 10am and 4pm. I think you would have a great time!


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the area I am not. I would love to visit you today. Remember that was my original intent. Well, I'll always remember the real jungle camp this summer and the big surprise of surprising you and the bigger surprise of you surprising me.

I am very happy that you are enjoying your language class. I think if it were terrible frustrating, one might want to back out. God bless you all.
Love, Mom

HopiQ said...

I just love how you and the other gals spruced up your jungle homes with fabric and such! It just proves the point that we can nest just about anywhere!

Jean said...

Have a great day up at Jungle camp - I hope that it isn't too cold. where oh where is Winnie - she would have liked being at jc again I bet.

Will most folks that visit the open house make it to the jc also?

Anonymous said...

Yes we all went out to Jungle camp and had fresh baked buns from Valerie's very hot oven..... and Q was very busy keeping her babysitter in line at home as in scolding her for not letting her eat by herself!!!! There she could have her rest and get over her cold.
Gramma

Kate said...

I wish we were closer to come and visit! Hope the Open House was fantastic!

Anonymous said...

Hey everybody, our laptop is broken! So I won't be able to update the blog very often until we figure out the remedy for the situation.

Anonymous said...

You are missed
B

Ron Easton for Dads UnLimited said...

ah, I thought if a week was bad, ten days must be worthy of falling from grace... but at least you have an excuse... a lousy excuse, but still...