4: Establish Yourself as a Language Learner

With whatever strategy you decide to use for learning a language, your most important task at the beginning is to establish yourself as a language learner in your community.

Your initial efforts should be to introduce yourself to everyone you meet and tell them that you are learning their language. Talk to your neighbors, local kids, shopkeepers, co-workers, and people on the street, waiters, people on the bus, in cafes, and anyone else you come across.

A good first dialog is the following:

• ሰላም ነው! __እባላለሁ። Hello. My name is __.
• ከአሜሪካ ነው የመጣሁት። አማርኛ ተምሬ ጎበዝ ተናጋሪ መሆን እፈልጋለሁ። I am from America. I want to learn Amharic and become a fluent speaker.
• ይሄን ብቻ ነው ለጊዜው የማውቀው። አመሰግናለሁ። ቻውው። That is all I can say right now. Thank you. Goodbye for now.

This accomplishes three very important things.

1. It gives you a role in the community. Everyone will be watching and talking about you anyway. Now they know who you are and what you are doing here. You are the crazy foreigner who is trying to learn their language.
2. If it gives the community a role by introducing yourself to the community as someone who wants to learn their language, you are also asking the community to help you learn. They will want to be a part of your success. They will cheer you on and celebrate your progress. They will enjoy telling their friends and family how they helped you practice. They will also enjoy telling funny stories about you during dinner about your language learning attempts.
3. This process is also a powerful way to integrate yourself into the community. It won’t take long before people are calling out your name, waving to you, and wanting to talk to you. You are no longer the strange new foreigner. Your language learning efforts help to break the ice. You are now THEIR strange new foreigner who is working hard to learn their language.