S1E2: Good Times Learning the Language

In this episode we touch on times that we have laughed while learning, times we have learned a lot and why, and times we felt rewarded in the home teaching our children the language.  PSA: If you do not wish to listen to us speaking Anishinaabemowin skip to 13 min

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Welcome to any waiting. This is our podcast about reasoning children in one second language learning.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

This is my husband. Triumphs and tips as we share our experiences of our household.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Another domain.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Um, uh Eshkinish Nabam Jick Akinamagazajminwa uh um Ozawa Minwa Ms. Gi Gija Ngi and Dana uh Gijawa de N Piaj Bakang. Um gijkat meanwanin would get the garning zebing shoneganing. Um be show ash uh z me uh peace a take. Nano the bagana geking. Um gig pee and gabi wobgi wobong musgwanquit episod Um gob monkit. G wob gab monkit uh masquanquit. Uh gig pi and gib it the go shame um um uh anan an uh ginamagos a jikish can chick. Um gifishawok um uh nano nano gish got ingi ingi ingi mud the beme ingi kwesh quota me or de um they show shod shkoding uh um away gibway uh gishap uh nano the bagnik and a butch um gauin and godamasy and danus uh ingasha gigi gijadea dan dan sanashinggi gabedabik nabayan um P and um Gitukaj Rushkozian um Oh Ngio Nendon uh Nano Nano Gak um Nakshik Kinaway Gitago D Gitag Gita Gameh Ashkodang Um Nishanasha Basikwin Quaidwinan Minagiukanashi Mos E Jagnashi Mosi Ode Um Ingi Nandam Ingi Gipanage Ingi Ingi Kita Mishkunts Minomishkuntsan Ashwigo Ingi Opomin Wanago Kinaway Bape Kinawaya Sustame Git Aya Ode Genabach Mary Jin Kazo Um Awaya Gi Mat Z Wat Oede Gi Take Wat Ga Um Apachiko Ngi Minwen Ingi Minwenda Kos Nishnabe Moyan Ode Minwangi Mwendan Um Ingo Ding Um Ninji Kwe Zoans Jinkozo Mage Nijo De Kwe Um Kinawe Gigi Ji Ginakazoing We No To Ninwe They All Call Us Um Ingi Ingiuja Jabwa Covid Um Ingi Ja We De Makade Gamagong Or Shang Yo Gamagong Londoning Mogi Ngiba Injibayon Um Er En Dayon Um Anishna Be Anishinabem To Nishna Bem Tadame Um Ninawe Be Indic Uh Kin Awaya Gi Um Kantam Gi Ginaga Da Wenda Da Wat O' Daily We're Ganish We Ganish We Ganish Um Giga Wat Gigi Ginandam Kin Awaya Minwa Zoangi Bop Ingi Bop Him A Patrick Go Mina Wat Nishna Be Mit Tad Tadme Umakwe Mina Kwe Ying Makade Bo Mag Nibishabo De Umgi Ugi Ekinomage Was Ashwigo Ngimatukime Nishinabemo In Nain Um Ngi Kendan That Counts For Nasa Bed Daming Sas Dunna Did You Guys Follow That Whole Time I Struggled Through That Um Aonong Uh N Ninia Ninia Pwaj Quake Mo Kinamagi Kinamaga Um Go Zna Banya Pi Nishna Ban Tadi Tad Yang We Chinw Enguding Ganabaji Gita Baj Dana Gita Baj Dana Uh V T A's Verb Transitive Animate Transitive Verb Soit Ashkenish Nabik Swakamuk Gita Bashtana Uh Nooch Nooj Transitive Kidwin Ghi Gee Quij Quidge Obje Nooch Nooch Kidwin Mean Wa Um Gi Obje Gee Obje Two Yong Gidwin Sa Okay Shiu Adamin To Kill Somebody Gia Obje Toon Gia Tuna Asia Azure Kidam Nooch Nooch Nik Nin N Godo Doom Nin Gado Doom Gado Doom Godo Doom Again Mean Dood Queen Do And Doodog Queen Mean Nooch Ah Nooch Nikki Poggi Baf Meh Oh Day Dabish Gol Angi Nin Sa Nin Sin Gishbin Windemoyen Gishabin Ah Gishbin Wind Windemo Uh Nin Nasa Nasa Bene Talk Uh Nishin Oh Miguel Nishin Gee Chap Paya Waya Kid Miss One Cozy Nabia Um Dina Gi Mekwent Wode U Game Or Tanta Mar Gemana Gia Tage Anjabin Um Gishbin Anch Tabin Gishbin Da Da Ingi Togita Meh Min Warin Gin Wanin Um Simultaneously Um Gimol In Gimol Bop Um G McEndon Winje Kid Kid Kidion Probably A Word For That You You Probably Now I Laugh Until You Cry Um Yeah, For Sure Like Mimanda Zitchige Ying Umanago Zi Yang Nin Uh Mm So That That Was A Time Together That I Can Th Well There was Many Times Together But Learning Um That was A I Learned A Lot In Um Um Anchtabin Gishpin So Like Switch Chairs Or Switch Your S where You're Sitting Like Switch Some Seats With Musical Chairs Sort of But N If You're Wearing Um This Item of Clothing Or if You have You know This Color Eye or Whatever So It's This Question Game And So You Gotta Be Able To You Think and Comprehend Quickly And Move Quickly And if N You're Stuck in the Middle And you have to Speak Infront of Everybody And Anyways That Was just A Funny Then I Can also Think of Um Menadun S Mean Wampokanaji There's some Really Good Times With That Game Right?

SPEAKER_03 13:38

Um Especially With Toto Totobo Sonic Weduke Well Mingonabic has a Migonabik and Moscow have a Name For That Game They Named It A Different Game Mm It's Called Quitcha Deb Que Debadoan Minique Giggle So we get Into The Well I think It's A Perfect Segway Into What We We're Gonna K Talk About Today, Right?

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Which is like Kind of Our Journey of Learning And Those Are Just Some Good Times That We Walking About That We Had Uh been Using The Language Orbers in the Language And had Learned A Lot or Had A Lun Learning Learned A lot While Having A Lot of Fun.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Um You're Trying To Use You know A good Couple Minutes in the Beginning of The Int S of the Segment To Use The Language Umce That's What We're Here To Talk Yeah So What We'll Get Into Is Uh I Guess Our What H what Kind of Helped Unguage And Those Things Resources or Different Activities or Things That Kind of Stood Of Us To Help Un So I Guess Um I Guess We'll Talk Or I'll Start With Kind of Partly My Language Journey. So Mine was started in 2007 And I Went To Sioux College Whit A One Year Um It's Called Mishnah Be One Immersion Program. So It was An 8 Month Program. It wasn't Imersion Though It was But It was Just Kind of Language Every Day And I Hit The Teacher That I Had There The Teachers Were Rose Trudeau and Doris Bosno. Really Good Really Good Beginner Teachers. They were really Pent With All of the Students And Um The Thing That Doris had shared with us was like the basic structure of the language. And kind of that's where I learned about the seven personal pronouns. And for me that was like a big um a big uh difference for me. Um I think that if I didn't know that if I didn't learn that right at that time when I first started seriously learning, I probably wouldn't have kept going with the language because it's too hard to um I had gone to different classes and attended um we had a class in university uh that I attended before going to Sioux College and it was just kind of like random phrases and words which which is always good. You you always want to build your vocabulary, but um I was kind of ready for that next step of learning how to put my own sentences together. Uh so that was kind of my first intro into kind of the grammar, I guess, and that sometimes gets a gets a negative connotation attached to it. But um for me it really helped with my deb way. With my understanding of the language and and speaking, um so that's what I'll share first, and then you can you can go and go ahead and share something that's helped you.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Um yeah, so I uh like Monty um like well I guess he had way more exposure as a kid, but first real exposure at Georgian College, first year program, um, an Ishinaabe mwin language programming program. It was exactly what I needed. It was like a slow introduction. Um it was a slow introduction to who we are as a people, and Ishinaabe mun and being an Ishinaabe decolonizing the mind through learning the language. So I actually got a lot of vocabulary there that we did a lot of focus on nouns, which was like super helpful in the beginning, especially. Um, since I would I I would say that my language learning journey really began after learning German really well, um, being able to transfer a lot of those frustrations over to learning that that comes with any second language learning. Um anytime you're learning a uh another language, those frustrations pop up, and then what's what was left out of that frustration that wasn't um language learning was usually like an emotional part. So in saying that I came out with a really good kind of base. Um no grammar at all, didn't know how to didn't know how the language worked when it came when I came out. I didn't understand that there was four different breakdowns, V A I's, V T I's, VTAs. Like I did understand that, but I did not understand how they worked or what it meant really. Monty invited the whole class at one point, and that's how I first became aware of Oog. And then the second year, um, I I applied for it and I got in, and that changed my world into what being in an Ishnaubem when immersion was like, especially in another dialect that I did not understand at all. Um amazing experience. I pushed through a lot of emotional stuff through that time, unfortunately. Monty uh was uh a good emotional support for me through that time, but um it was really what I needed, and then shortly after that, uh Ashken Ishnabem Jick um ran their first cohort of uh students through, and so I was able to join right shortly after Oog, and so I was fresh out thinking, you know, three weeks in Ishnaabem when able to go right into our own dialect, which was again a jump, um with three wonderful teachers um or facilitators who brought in like wonderful um speakers and elders and had uh space for grammar just like U did um so that we can you know address those pieces that we're noticing in within the day that isn't kind of clicking for us, so we're not understanding why we can't understand this grammatical piece because um because yeah. Went to uh Pasway A to Goop for a year. Um that uh I don't know, maybe Monty did you want to talk about that program?

SPEAKER_03 21:11

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Um and Ishkenishna Bemjik if you want.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

So I'll go back to um Wapu Island, started a program which was a four-year uh language program, and it was supposed to be full immersion. Um it was about 50-50 immersion, um, and we had our teachers there. Um they were fluent speakers, um, but they had uh kind of little experience with immersion and teaching adults and uh the one thing that I was able to get out of it because I had that base of structure already, um I was kind of able to kind of take these other resources that I had, like uh Marion Corbier's um Ishnau Bayman workbooks and uh the grammar reference grammar Ishnau Bayman reference grammar by Rand Valentine and use these um resources to help me understand the speakers and what they were saying and kind of helped me um raise my level of uh understanding because sometimes the speakers would just sit there for um maybe even for an hour um just speaking in the language and uh you kind of had to step your game up and in really listening and understanding. Um and then it it that program it didn't uh I guess it didn't really push people to speak, like it didn't really force people to be uncomfortable to speak. Um so in that sense I my level of speaking raised as well without kind of that pressure of of having to be at a certain level. Um so after that um then when I went to Oog the first year, uh which was 2015, um the summer of 2015, uh that was my first year of actually being fully immersed and uh seeing other young people that were speakers that were actually like proficient at staying in the language and also communicating with elders.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Where was this?

SPEAKER_03 24:00

Oog.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Oh yes, yes, that was like the first time, yes, for me as well. That I was like, whoa, like there are people here that are just talking and was not used to that at all.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Yeah, so um and I remember the first year that I went, I remember there was a a breakthrough that I had that had come over me because one of the things that was my goals or part of my goals that I set to when I was first started learning the language was to understand ceremonies or understand when elders are speaking in the language. And um at Oog we um we had an elder kind of give us a teaching. Um we talked about the creation story and some of the teachings around that, and I could understand pretty much what everything what he was saying. And after that I it felt like I was on like a walking on a cloud. Um and I couldn't like I was just like in disbelief maybe. Like, oh like I one of my goals was to be able to understand like an elder giving teachings in the language. So that was a big breakthrough that I had noticed when when I had gone there. Um just a kind of like a culmination of all of the learning that I had done up to that point. Uh because sometimes we we don't know what like our per our progression or where we're at, because there's no like standardized tests or anything to tell us, okay, you're you're a speaker of six out of ten right now. Uh we're gonna get you to seven out of ten. There's none of these standardized things that are out there uh yet to really measure where we are, so um those would that was just one thing that I kind of set for myself, I guess, as a measurement.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

So that was the year before I went. Um Yeah. Yeah. Did you wanna speak about anything after that?

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Um No you came on.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Um it was the second year I had come back though. So I had gone my first year on the year that Monty had gone his second year, and then on Monty's third year was my second time, and so I I was returning thinking I had not learned that much more. Like so when entering, um, we were doing the the normal organiz uh orientation. Um you come in and it's a place that is separate from where we were actually, you know, going to be living our headquarters and li living quarters, sorry, and um and where we would we where we would be learning and um kaiganing, is that what they call it? Wokaiganing, yeah. So um in this space, you know, we would get something to eat and sit down and kind of go over, you know, base rules, so expectations, um, what's that called? Housekeeping. And last year, the or the previous year, when I had stepped out of the car and people had introduced themselves to me, I was like peeing my pants. Like I was having a hard attack because I couldn't understand people even introducing themselves to me. So when I entered second year, um, and we sat down and she began, you know, speaking in they all began speaking in the language first, you know, explaining the rules. And I couldn't believe that like everything that was she was being said was like click, click, click, click, click. I was not, there was nothing, I wasn't getting stuck anywhere. I wasn't getting, you know, caught on a word and then having to stop. And I I was just following along, and I couldn't believe it because the year previous I was getting stuck on the first word. Um, so by the end of it, I was like, I hadn't even had a like I hadn't even sweat yet, and it was already we had already been through protocols, housekeeping, all this. I'm still sitting there with my juice and my sandwich, like I can't believe, you know. But I can see, you know, a couple other people, you know, experiencing what I was experiencing the previous year, and I was just kind of in shock. So then later on I go and talk to a couple of the facilitators, and they're saying that all they're all saying the same thing. They're like, oh, the minotach. Is that right? Like, is that how they used to say it over there? Yeah, like I just kept hearing that. Um, or nitachige. Um and I was just oh, you can understand me. Yes, like compared to last year, we you are just doing and I just I had no idea that I had moved up at all. And you know, the previous year I was hyperventilating in the parking lot at this point, so um, yeah, that was like uh a big moment for me to be able to just enter the space and not, you know, feel like I needed to grab a paper bag to breathe. Um yeah, big big monumental moment for me. Um so that takes us where in time.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Um so then after that, um at this point I was working with my community with language stuff and uh we started a oh I guess we started uh Eshkenishnaubamjik, which we based off of um Oog, so um Squankwit Rice and Mikonabik, Jessica Shonyas. We had started um we had They actually them two had gone to Oog before the year before me and I had heard about Oog and I was hesitant to go 'cause I was like, well, they don't speak the same dialect and I won't get anything out of it. So then I seen that they went, so then I was like, okay, I guess I can I'll check it out. Um so the the summer, the next summer, my first year and their second year, um we kind of one night we kind of talked about we should create something like this in Ontario because there's nothing nothing like it in Ontario. There's no kind of immersion experience um uh that was out there. So uh we with the help of uh Kenji Gayo and Tech uh in Chiking, we we were able to start do the first summer of uh we called it Ashkenishnau Banjik New Speakers or Young Speakers. And uh so we did a two-week two-week program and we had applicants and invited people and uh so that was 2016 and then so every summer we run it up until 2019, and then uh we haven't run it in 2020 and probably not 2021 just because of the pandemic, but um but you guys have done a lot of stuff online already since then just to be in the community, so for sure. Yeah. But so the people that have gone to Ashkinish Naubemjik have shared with shared with us that it's really helped them, um, because it's usually their first time too, being fully immersed like all day. And um you get used to the language so much that you go back into the regular world, I guess, and you want to speak in the language to them. And people have told us like it's the first time like after attending a few days, it's like their first time dreaming in the language and stuff like that. So and and I think we we found those things helpful as well, being immersed. Um so that that's why we created it. Um and I know how hard it is to to try and put on an immersion anything, like a immersion day or an immersion class, and English tends to creep in um because of various reasons. Could be the level of speakers, um, if they're very beginner, it's really hard to stay in the language because everyone wants to express themselves.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Um Has anybody seen Ferngulli?

SPEAKER_03 33:14

I haven't seen Ferngulli. Exactly.

unknown 33:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

When you said that I just reminded me of like English creeping in. It always just like 90s babies movie.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

So yeah, uh what we found works is that if you have learners who are proficient enough to um organize and keep everything on task um and keep everything in the language, that things will stay in the language. And I've and I have experience of that. Um so we we had tried to start a adult immersion program in my community a triple other times. Um, and we called it Pasoway Autoga, and that was a name that was given to us for our language programming, which we had done before uh with um Betsy Kiju. And so we we tried to start this program, or we did actually do one year of the program. Um but it was meant to be kind of 90% immersion. Um and it's really it's really uh difficult in some aspects because of the um you want a relationship build with your students and your teachers, and so our fluent speakers that we had uh wouldn't or didn't want to stay in the language because they could see you know students struggling to understand and they kind of felt bad, I guess. And so they it would revert into English or have English translations and um and then the students also want to express themselves. They want to joke around, they want to be sociable, and so the only way that they know how is their first language, which is English. But then it becomes a snowball effect where you just you say one word in English and then it's two words, and then next thing you know, we're having conversations, and then next thing you know, it's a whole hour of just English talking in English. Um and I've seen that at other um events as well, like language events that were supposed to be immersion.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

And it's not like you want to be a police, but it's so hard to get yourself back into a space of like motivation to stay in the language once you've already escaped and have like been able to express some of those things that you can't quite express in the language, like humor and whatnot. So it's um it's almost just not even worth the the struggle of doing it in the first place, right? So I think that's what that's why that is there, that that's the intention, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

Yeah. Um so but also I wanted to kind of talk about when we went to Oog and what we tried to incorporate uh Shkinesh Al Bemjik is Luci U Bonacci or Wizao Bonesik who was kind of the main person to start Oog. She um she knew that there was a need for grammar um teaching, and that and that's what helped her as well. And so she has um, or they have Brandon Fairbanks and Wanagoble. Um he teaches the grammar portion at Ook, and so that's one part. It's like 45 minutes to an hour a day of English where you're learning grammar patterns. Um and it's just kind of he lays it out really well, and uh we do that at Ishkinishnaw Bemjik with Marianne Corbier. Um she provides uh the grammar there, and that's that was one thing that that has helped me, and so we knew that we had to incorporate that, and I I feel like that needs to be incorporated in other in all kind of language learning spaces, although uh we don't always have the resources. Um fluent speakers don't necessarily know the grammar or want to teach the grammar. Um so we have um just capacity of who where can we find the magic teacher who knows everything, or where how can we fill those gaps with this teacher that's an expert in this, or teach teacher that's expert in this, and um putting it all together. And I feel like these are all tools that that we pick up and we learn along our journey to help us to help us learn. But I don't know if you wanted to touch on the grammar part a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Um okay, well I'm gonna go back to to learning German. So I I went to Trautmannsorf in der Leitta, which is like a small small town outside of Vienna in Austria, in Europe, and they speak German in in Austria, but it is Austrian German. And um, so the first three months I was there, the expectation was that I would be speaking German and also teaching the children English, and that's why most uh families hire au pairs is for language learning and culture learning. Most of them want their children to speak English, and so they hire au pairs to be that English influence within the house, and then um also the au pair gets the opportunity to travel and learn a new language, etc. So within the first three months, we noticed that like nothing was moving smoothly because I was not I had a base of German, but it was not going smoothly because I couldn't understand instructions, and so I would misinterpret them and do the instruction wrong, and then we'd have to start over. So it became just me speaking in English a lot. So by month three out of six, I had like learned nothing. Um and that's when my host mom had suggested, okay, well, like you're this far in. I think that like maybe one, we need to get you some friends, which didn't happen just because of my working and and whatnot. And two, um, let's get you in a grammar class because you have all these little bits and everything, but you don't know how to use any of them, and I was like, okay. Um, so that's what I did is I ended up having to make a bunch of friends just by like walking into a party in a bar and just saying, hi, be my friend. And so the socialization with those people where I had to be in German, mixed with the fact that I was being sent to these grammar classes, which were intermediate, not beginner. Um, it was all obviously in German because it was in Austria. So people were coming from Romania, Hungary, Italy, Czech Republic, but they're all learning German grammar in German. And I'm having like a breakdown because I'm like, I don't understand all the words. How is it that you guys know all the words that he's saying? And I was like, why are you you're translating this for me? And he's like, Because this is a ger we're in Austria, like you this isn't an English, like you just have to learn it. And I was like, Oh, it was like kind of a hit me on the head with a hammer kind of you just have to learn it, like this is no magical thing here. This isn't like everyone knows some magical formula, you you just have to learn it. And so putting those two together by six by six sort of six months when my parents came to arrive, I was like, like I was just to anybody could talk like da da da da da da da da da da da, and my parents were like, Who is this person? So transferring that over to Nishina Bemwin. Um I had so many of these like little parts and whatnot, but I didn't even have enough of the language grammar to understand in Nishna Bemwin how to use these things. So when I was given that half an hour, I how long do we have like three hours, two hours and eight? Yeah, yeah, at Oog. Um it gave us that space as adults to take those pieces that you know as children, like they would we would have a context because of you know they're so absorbent, but we don't have that context necessarily, or sometimes we get it wrong. So taking all those and being able to ask it and apply it, and then taking that again, taking that new information, and then going back out the next day and trying to apply it. And I know that that's a strength of my being able to do that, just like being able to take that information and apply it right away. That's how I learned so quickly, and that's why immersion is so good for me, and that's why I needed that piece of um grammar. And so, had I not have learned that in Austria, I would have probably been that very defensive person in grammar class because I like everything with me, you know, is uh is very emotional. So, um, like I said, like knowing those things about me and having to learn that first was super helpful. I'm not saying that you need to go and do that by any means, but just for me, it it it allows me to speak from it from um a perspective where I can step back and look at how I can compare second language learning and then what was uh something that was like very nishnape to me. Um I could kind of separate the two of them. Um what else with grammar? EN at Nishkin Nishnabem, Jake, Mary Ann's classes. Um I was really only attending with my daughter. Um I couldn't commit um to being there all class, every class because I had to put my daughter down and to sleep and whatnot. But what ones I did attend, um, again, super helpful. She explained something called the hierarchy of um maybe pronouns. I'd have to look back at exactly what she called it, but you know, just like in regards to how we address one another um grammatically, that took me like three years to be able to apply, but I can remember sitting in that class and getting that information. So I remember it really with my heart because I had no idea what was going on that first year, but by you know, 2020 I was finally like, alright, I'm like starting to get now what she meant that uh right, like 2019 maybe. Um this could be a whole like two episodes in one, but I'm kind of glad we're getting it um all in one episode here.

SPEAKER_03 44:11

I guess is there any other resources that come to mind that helps you or that has helped you?

SPEAKER_01 44:20

Um well Marianne Corbier's um online dictionary is on every device of mine I make it into an app. Um I take that uh uh web address or whatever, and I just turn it right into an app so I can access it whenever I can.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

Um Quizlet. Um Quizlet.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Your Quizlet Um Possible Autogok has a lot of sets in it. Uh but you know, I've learned that five to ten minutes a day every day does way more than trying to do five hours on the weekend or something like that. Like honestly, even when I'm reading books, because I'm a slow reader, I'll just do two pages a day and then I'll be there, right? So um going on Quizlet and just focusing on one VTA or one VAI or you know, one word set list of you know, and just doing it over and over on the matching or whatever for for five to ten minutes before going to bed has been very helpful for me.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

Um I guess like some of the storybooks that that we have or that are out there that are like kind of bilingual recordings of elders, that's what I've found helpful as well. Like just going seeing the seeing the Nishina Baim one, trying to figure it out, and then looking at the English side of it, what the translation is and um putting it together like that. That's how kind of helped me with my understanding and how the how sentence structure looks like in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

Um Barbara Nolan's website is really good too. For um TPRS uh total physical response storytelling. She's really good at no mer no English, but uh you'll get you'll get the idea of the story um currently in in school. Um in the course of taking the first semester uh we were assigned to basically answer, tell the story of what was happening basically every class. And just by doing that out of the last month and a half, not even, I've did not think I could exercise that part of my brain of translating one language while listening some to someone speak. So I I was telling Monty this, um and my and my parents that the ability for me to hear two conversations or to listen to two people at once or to read something while I'm listening to something else has increased like extra exponentially for me, which is crazy because it's only been like not even six weeks of just doing this maybe five, six times. Um I'm not saying you need to go and do this, but for me, I did not expect to really get anything other than more comprehension and more um like listening skills, but I can't believe that like that is a skill in itself that I've gained and now I notice like I can listen to my daughter and my friend or my daughter and my teacher and my daughter and my son at the same time. Like it's just kind of crazy to me. Um that I've been come in tune with the fact that I have this skill.

SPEAKER_03 47:47

So I guess I'll use this opportunity as a plug for this book that uh it's coming out that I've edited and translated with help of elders. Um so it's another it's kind of like another exercise if you're able to do it is record an elder speaking and then trying to transcribe it all. Like try and write down all of the Nishnaabemoin and then try and translate as much as you can. Um so part of the reason for this book that's coming out, um, it's called Pekinong uh Dabaj Moanan stories from where the waters divide. So Pekajanong is the name of the community um that has a number of speakers um in southwestern Ontario. And I was able to record a few of them and um so that's what it the reason part of the reason why I did it was to for my own learning to to do exactly that, which was listen to a story and try and write everything down, and um that helped my uh my comprehension level as well, I think. And again, getting like the sentence structure and little things like that. Um so I'm hoping that it would help other learners in that aspect as well as um because I tried to write the langu, I tried to transcribe it almost exactly how they how they spoke it. Um just to make sure that kind of all the sounds are in there. Um so yeah, that's that's another thing that would be helpful, or if you know, like there's a few places that have recordings, like um Ojibwe.net um has recordings of st stories from different elders. And if you're if you're wanting to do that exercise where you wanna or Barbara Nolan's videos, if you want to sit sit and uh kind of try and go through it and write everything down that that they're saying and then try and translate it.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Or even just repeating is like another awesome, just trying to say what they're saying, repeating it back as they say it. You taught me that one.

SPEAKER_03 50:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

There's a word for that, isn't it? It's shadowing or something.

SPEAKER_03 50:27

Um I forget the word for shadowing, mirroring something.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

It's not necessarily considered effective in when you can like when you listen to other, but just for the practice of like hearing the sounds and getting them out and trying to decipher words and where words split and whatnot, I find it helpful.

SPEAKER_03 50:47

Yeah, and just getting that rhythm of how a film speaker talks. And uh so if you're listening, you just play a story and you just try and say what they say. You might not um you right. You might not say everything exactly what they're saying because they're just going along really quickly, but just kind of go along with them and and just kind of repeat what you can as the story goes along.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

Yeah, because something I think people forget too is that like when you're speaking a new language you have complete new muscles that you're gonna have to use. Woo! We got a delivery at the door. Um do you want to get a or do you want me to? Here. Um, I know sometimes if people don't people are shy and nervous to to actually go out and speak in front of other people or have a conversation because they don't want to say things wrong, they don't want to mess it up, they don't want to sound wrong. Um this is a really good exercise to have to help practice um working out those muscles in your mouth that you're not used to using because a lot of the time we say it in our head and it sounds fine, but as soon as we try and say it, especially in front of someone and we're overthinking, you stumble and you mess up, and a good way of practicing that is getting those um muscles practiced and worked out and uh make it easier to get those sounds out, and also you've been saying them for so long, it'll sound a little bit more you'll feel a little bit more natural to say them, and it'll help you when you know you're feeling under pressure to answer to less worry about pronunciation and more worry about the content of what you need to say back. So that's what I was gonna say before that uh interruption. So I think we'll end it here because it's been a it's been a long one, yeah. Concentrated one. Um Panego Nishna Baimon from me and mush go gobwit kwe.

SPEAKER_03 52:35

I'll say gigal archit can kwe jin shnobanyan. So don't give up in trying to speak the language. Yeah,