The views expressed in this blog are personal and not representative of the U.S. Government, etc etc etc.
Read at your own risk.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Why I love language training

When we first realized that Brandon was going to need language training, I was apprehensive about it.  I had heard unpleasant things; that he would be in class all day and doing homework all night, I would never see him again, or he would go crazy with all of the language he had to learn in such a short time.

Now that he's been in training for over six weeks, I can officially say that I Love Language Training.  It's fantastic.  It's wonderful.  I haven't bathed my children in weeks.  If we didn't have to live crammed into a tiny townhouse without much of our things and living on base pay, I'd be happy to have Brandon in language training perpetually.  And so would he.

Some days he has to stay really late, like until four o'clock.  Then he doesn't get home until almost four thirty, after leaving at seven in the morning.  Those are the rough days.  At least once a week, he'll get off early enough to meet me and the children at the park and we'll walk home together, often after spending some quality rock-throwing time at the creek next to the park.

The other day I had an OB appointment at one in the afternoon.  Brandon told his teacher that he had to leave a few minutes early, and he was home in time for me to go to the doctor all by myself and read a book while waiting.

And to make life even better, Brandon really enjoys learning Azerbaijani.  He is in a class with three other men, all Russian speakers, so they spend half of the time speaking in Russian so he gets to work on that also.  According to Brandon, Azerbaijani is a very logical language, and even has the added bonus of the odd Arabic word thrown in, and so  he is happily doing quite well.  I asked him a few weeks ago how long it took him to get to this point in Arabic (after majoring in Arabic in college), and he looked at me and replied, "never."

In a few months, we'll move on to post where Brandon will have to work a real job again with real hours and I'll have to bathe the children again.  But until then, I'm really enjoying the break.  And so is he.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Ooh! Fantastic! Us specialists don't get to do language training. We get to cram it in on our own time. ;)

UnkaDave said...

OK, as a person suddenly thrown in to Bogota, where not much English is heard, I'll take a few months of that - even if it is Azerbaijani!
Say Hi to the rock throwers!

PaulaJean said...

When pictures start rotating on my computer screen saver, I realize that I miss the rock-throwers too. Give them a hug and a kiss for me.

pillarofpeace said...

Oh those were almost the same reasons my hubby and I loved language training too. When I had classes, I could eat lunch with the kids at the park and get home early. It was SO nice:)