Awesome :)
Haiti does grow on you, doesn’t it? I’m glad you’ve found love and
attachment there.
An introductory Haitian Creole language class is
highly recommended. It’s a great environment for you to practice listening and
speaking. Many people try to learn H. Creole on their own because Haitian
Creole language classes are not as available as ESOL, Spanish, French, Italian,
etc…. And some people are successful at learning independently using all the
resources they can. Learning on your own
has one down side though, you don’t get to practice the speaking part as much
as you’d like to. You understand every
written and spoken word but speaking the language is a big challenge.
Isn’t it just discouraging when you think, Ok I’m ready. I can handle a basic conversation In Haitian Creole. I KNOW I CAN!
I have done it in my head many many times. And then you approach this native guy and say
one sentence, like Bonjou, kijan ou ye?
hoping that he notices your obvious
accent and would reply with a slow paced response just like the conversations
that you’ve practiced on the audio tapes and CDs, but no! The native throws at you one long sentence
spoken at a million miles per second, all the words bunched up together, and
you’re very sure that he must have spoken a full paragraph. You smile and shake
your head pretending to agree with whatever he’s saying, but really you are
scanning the string of words coming out of his mouth looking for a familiar sound,
but NOTHING! At last you are grateful that you had learned
this sentence (just in case): Speak more slowly please! (I used that a
lot when I was learning English); ¡Hable
más lento, por favor! (I’ve actually had to pull that out of my Spanish
language repertoire once in a while) and Pale
pi dousman tanpri! (you’ll say to the natifnatal
guy) and he might take time to enunciate and you’ll learn that all he replied was
Bonjou, mwen byen e ou menm?
If you cannot physically get to a class, try online
group classes (Haitihub.com is a good place to start. Their online program might be for you). If
that’s not an option try books for beginners WITH audio. If you do try books with audio, you’ll additionally
need to practice with someone who speaks the language. Listening to spoken Creole is as important as
speaking it. Listen to Haitian Creole
radio programs, broadcast news, Youtube videos, songs, etc… At first you might not hear anything that you
understand, but little by little you’ll pick up words, then sentences, then
expressions, and etc… Reading Haitian Creole is helpful too. Begin with books of Haitian Creole tales or
stories for kids, most likely written with elementary grammar. Some people find
the audio part of this blog very helpful as they get to listen to H. Creole dialogues
while you read them – and you can download and listen to them as many times as
you need so you’ll actually hear some of those dialogues in conversations when
you’re around H. Creole speaking people.
If anyone has anything to add, any foreigner who’s
been there, who has either started with
classes or on their own – please feel free to comment – you might be able to
help our friend start on the right foot.
Mèsi anpil anpil.
Haitian Creole ↔ English Reference, Look up Haitian Creole and English Words
