Journal #3: Learning Twi

     English is the national language in Ghana so thankfully I will be able to manage quite well with my native tongue but with the nature of my project, I want to learn Twi as well as I can before going to Ghana. I don't know how much Twi will be spoken in comparison to English in my observations of healer-patient interactions and I do not want to be blindsided when I am in Ghana where I can't understand a thing that is going on around me if Twi is being spoken by both individuals. Of course I cannot learn the language sufficient enough to understand everything nor to even be able to speak a full sentence back but I sure am going to try to learn every single thing that my brain will take in. Not only is it very hard for me to essentially teach myself a new language (or anything for that matter) but having the power in my brain to recognize sounds and letter sequences that mean something in another language is going to be a real struggle. I can say a few simple things already but if I do not think about or say it every day then I have lost progress by the next. I pray every night for the gift of tongues whilst learning this language and especially while I am in Ghana because I sure am going to need it.
      The reason why I feel like it will be so important to me is not only because I want to immerse myself as fully as I can into their culture (communication being an essential part of understanding...not just with language), but also because within my project methods I will be sitting in on healer-patient interactions and I do not know if those who are being healed and those who are healing will be speaking Twi or English, maybe even Twiglish but the point is, I do not want to be stuck with something I cannot analyze, nonetheless understand from an interaction with a traditional healer and an older Ghanaian man who are speaking Twi. As i am writing this, I am taking a break from studying my alphabet and simple things like 'we', 'you', 'I', 'us', 'they', etc... every time I think I get it, I try to translate a sentence from Twi to English or vice versa and the singular/plural stuff messes me up. Anyone speaking French, Spanish, Italian, or whatever else should be eternally grateful to Google Translate for the services they provide. I sure would love that help right about now. Regardless of the struggles and frustrations I get so excited every time I open my "Lets Learn Twi" book because everything about this experiences makes my heart soar!