Good Intentions

Good intentions- we all know how those go. I’ve had some pretty first-rate experiences with them, especially along the lines of language, for which I am going to muse upon in this post.

Five years ago I had this good intention of learning Romanian from some of my family’s good friends. That was five years ago. All I can say is “what is this?” (phonetically CHA EST AUSTA?) and “this is___”(AUSTA ESTA___), mulţumesc, da, nu, cheh my fahch?, and a few other random phrases (one of which translates something like “go jump in the spinach”- expressly used as one of our girls’ chief insults to Romanian teenage boys). Our Romanian friends, a population of which that seems to be growing rapidly among our acquaintances, have decided that they’ve babied us too much. They say we’re going to learn now. I hope their good intention pay off; we’ll see. It could happen since they’re moving to the school I’m going to in 6 week. Now I’ll see them every day rather than two or three times a week.  I’d love to rattle off in their strange tongue while interspersing it with brief phases of English, like they do so irkingly to us Martins! :-)

Another good intention of mine started well over eight years ago, before my family went to Europe the first time. I diligently started learning French, so as to act as the family interpreter while on our four-day leg of our month long European vacation in that country. I learned a few nice things, such as how to say that a monkey is eating a banana on an airplane and that the baby is crying, but I never was able to use these phrases to the natives of France. The best I did was order five baguettes at a small bakery out near Normandy beach one windy, Sunday November afternoon. After this depressing language venture, my French intention didn’t take me past one year of French in high school. Sadly to say, although my love for this language didn’t go away, my desire to study it did. However, I still intended to learn it— one day. The best I’ve done at this language endeavor was French 1 as a part of my recent Associate of Arts degree. At least I now know some really helpful things in French…

I intend to learn a language. I’ve tasted one and love it. My Romanian mother, for Luminiţa Shaffer is my second mom, brought her mother over about two years ago from Romania. Lily can’t speak any English other then “Thank you” and “Happy Sabbath”. Sign language is hard. How I wish I could speak to her. She talks and I can’t tell what she wants! You know that language barrier- isn’t it frustrating? I want to learn a language fluently. I’m going to. I intend to. I have ideas of language school going through my head. I may go next fall, honestly (2013-2014). You hear the gears of my active imagination-concerning-my-education turning, don’t you? These ones are well oiled, I tell you. My thoughts vacillate between France or Germany, but Norway tempts me, too. . . I really love French, but I have strong ties to German and Norwegian. So, we’ll see. I

Having a good intention is part of the spice of life. A motivation to keep us pressing forward; it helps us from noticing all the bumps of life at present of or our pasts. I strongly believe that intending is a good thing. We can’t leave it at intention only. You can see I intended much in my past but haven’t done so much to attain my intentions. I intend to succeed but if I don’t preserve to successful completion, my intention is for naught- and I’m not going to go there any more. So, I am going to learn a language.

And as a random side note to those of you who read this far in this post, let’s get English down pat. My intelligent sister Cayce, a French 1-3 in college kind-of-girl, told me that American English has 1 word that has a masculine and feminine form—blond and blonde. Thank you France! So, for all you blonde girls out there, spell your hair color like you mean it, and all you blond guys, keep the e off it, if you please. :) ~ See, learning another language actually helps us learn English better!  

Cami & Tanner, France 2004