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The Cost of Learning German
by Kevin C · Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Kevin: Another missionary couple on our team, Dave and Rachel Byers, wrote recently in one of their blogs about the language training their currently going through. They described how foreign language competency can be measured with five different levels. The highest level of language acquisition, 5, is never reached by most foreign speakers. In fact the majority of foreign language learners do not advance beyond level 2.The reason for this, they write, is that in order to advance beyond level 2 something inside you has to die. You have to give up a part of your native, English-speaking self and be transformed in your conceptual thinking into the new language. You have to begin thinking and conceiving in that language. I just thought that this was such a stark metaphor for what missionaries are called to do. We truly are called to die to ourselves and take on the life and stuggles of those to whom we're ministering. If that doesn't happen, we'll always be nothing but outsiders. But to do this, we must let go of ourselves and in a sense die.
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