আমি বাংলা যানি!

The title of this post is "I know Bangla!" Not really, but I am super excited about Google Transliteration, a service Jarrod and I just stumbled upon last night, which allows us to type in Roman script and it be automatically converted to Bengali script. (You have to know Bangla though--it doesn't change the English language into Bangla for you.)

Anyway, Jarrod and I got some really exciting and encouraging news about our language last week. Somehow we got on the subject of how we are doing with Protima Didi, our language instructor. She said that we are now at the low-intermediate level--very exciting for us, because we've been studying for just five weeks!

Then she told us about a major language program overhaul she's planning for October. You see, she's pretty much a master teacher...probably the best that we could have found in the city. She says that people go to Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture or Jadavpur University to study Bangla because the course fees are so inexpensive, and end up coming to her when the course is finished because they haven't learned anything. "A good teacher needs to be trained in Bangla," she says, "It doesn't help to be a native speaker, because you can't teach the language as well."

Anyway, because she's so rockin' awesome, she's very, very busy. She's got this little spiral-bound calendar that she schedules people on, and it's just full of eraser marks and pencilled-in appointments. She'll look at her calendar and say, "Where am I going to put you? Where? There is no space!"

Because of this, she's putting together a new, intensive, 3-month program. Jarrod and I will be studying with one other couple who are similar to us in Bangla skillz. At six-o-clock every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we will come to Protima Didi's house, study for an hour with someone trained in pronounciation, while another more advanced class studies grammar with Protima Didi. Then at seven-o-clock, we will switch to grammar with Protima Didi and the advanced students will go to the pronounciation person. She also plans to have listening exercises and video clips! And of course, Jarrod and I will continue our Tuesday-Thursday drilling with Piu, one of the junior instructors.

This is all very exciting. Protima Didi has told us that we will be able to read newspapers by December! Yikers...this might be a bit of an overestimate. But maybe it's totally feasible, I don't know! It just means that I'm going to be studying very hard to get to that point. And by December--we will have only been here for four months, with eight more left to get even better!

Well, I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, quick anecdote related to language: I was out on Rash Behari the other night, going to get some pomagranates and sweet yogurt (no joke), and I'm walking along this stretch just opposite to the local park, when this older lady just turns to me and asks, এটা কি দেশাপ্রিয়া পার্ক? Which sounds like, "Eta ki Deshapriya Park?" and means, "Is that Deshapriya Park?" And I totally understood her and could say yes! It was very exciting.

--Emily