Top 10 You Won't See On Letterman

My training draws to a close this week and I’ll be sworn in as an honest-to-goodness Peace Corps volunteer tomorrow on Thanksgiving day. Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Macedonia but we are having a feast of American and Macedonian specialties (including turkeys flown in from the States) to thank everyone who helped us survive training. Then my fellow volunteers and I disperse to our new homes and begin work. Volunteers in Macedonia either teach (or train others to teach) English in schools or work on community development, usually with non-governmental agencies or municipalities. The end of training is bittersweet—I’ll definitely miss my host family, my classmates and teacher in language school, and the coziness of Sveti Nikole. On the other hand, I am eager to explore Bitola and see what I can contribute there as a volunteer.

No more training also means no more daily language classes. The good news is that everyone in my training group passed the exam they gave us measuring our progress, so we’re all at an intermediate-low level or better. While I am eligible to work with a language tutor (and I definitely will), my progress with Macedonian is now more or less in my own hands. There are surely languages in other Peace Corps countries that are harder to learn than Macedonian but it’s no slam dunk either. To whit, here is my list of the top 10 reasons learning Macedonian is hard:

1. It’s in Cyrillic, with 31 letters to the Roman alphabet’s 26 letters. Some Cyrillic letters look the same as Roman letters and are pronounced the same; some look the same but are pronounced different; and the other letters are just alien to a native English speaker.
2. Same word, multiple definitions. For example, weather and time are the same word. So are Sunday and week. How do you tell the difference? Context, just context.
3. Genders. As is the case in many foreign languages, there are masculine, feminine, and neuter words. Truthfully, genders are easier to discern in Macedonian than German but this segues us to number 4…
4. Pluralizing nouns. There are 4 different ways to pluralize Macedonian nouns, which depends on the noun’s gender and whether the word is polysyllabic. Oh, and of course there are exceptions to the “rules.”
5. Verb conjugation. Verbs in Macedonian end one of three different letters. All verbs are conjugated differently for I, you, him, her, it, we, y’all, and they. This means there are 18 different patterns of verb conjugation to remember—in present tense. Then there’s future tense, past tense, and other tenses with names too complicated to remember. And while we are talking about verbs…
6. Optional subjects. With all the precise verb conjugation, putting the subject in a sentence is optional in Macedonian. For example, instead of saying, “They are going to the mountains,” it’s just “Are going to the mountains” because the verb conjugation indicates the subject. Which is fine, if I remember the right way to conjugate the verb.
7. Formal and informal “you.” Again, lots of languages employ formal you and informal you, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me to discern which is appropriate to use.
8. Genders again, this time with adjectives. All the adjectives have to be conjugated for the noun they describe, based on the noun’s gender. So “short” man, woman, child, and people are all different words for “short.”
9. Direct and Indirect Object. In Macedonian, the direct object or indirect object in a sentence must be identified twice. So if a sentence is something like, “Every day I drive my mom’s car,” then in Macedonian it’s more like, “Every day her I drive my Mom’s car.” Really confusing stuff.
10. It’s just not English!

Of course, knowing Macedonian is great and here are ten reasons why:

1. I can feed myself. Knowing at least some basic food words means I can buy food at the market and restaurants. This is closely related to number 2…
2. Sometimes I can not feed myself. It’s hard to talk a Macedonian out of giving you food, but it is sometimes possible with the right phraseology.
3. Getting directions. If I get lost or can’t find something, I can ask for assistance and *hopefully* understand the response. I can ask for all the important locations a Peace Corps volunteer needs—the bus station, bank, and hospital.
4. Understanding jokes. When someone is making fun of you (or better yet, someone else), it’s good to be in on the joke.
5. Making friends. It’s hard to strike up a conversation with someone if you don’t speak the same language—obvious but true.
6. Fun words. There are some real tongue twisters in Macedonian but there are fun words too. My classmates I are especially fond of “wait, wait” checky checky and “tsk, tsk” lei lei.
7. I can refresh myself. Sometimes you’re, you know, thirsty. I’m pretty good now at requesting the appropriate beverage for my mood and the occasion.
8. Exploring differences. Macedonia is quite different from America and vice versa. It’s good to be able to point out how and discuss why. For instance, why don’t Americans usually go visit friends and neighbors on the fly but Macedonians do?
9. Most American’s don’t know it. Even if my Macedonian is terrible, most American’s don’t know any Macedonian (or that it’s even a language that exists), so I’m well ahead of the curve.
10. It’s just not English!