In an early post I recounted how I declined a mission call. I did the right thing.

But I do wonder about RMs who mastered a language. Did this make it worthwhile.

I can translate simple Sanskrit and Pali, and I can speak Tagalog and Bisaya at the marketplace level, but I can't speak any of these languages fluently.

I would love to hear from RMs. Was it worth it?

No

I understand Tagalog okay. But we never used in when I was a missionary because educated people there speak very good English. I learned it mainly from being married to a Filipina and by associating with lots of Filipinos.

Here is a couple of lines to learn: Makukunwari Hindi mo ako mahal. (You're pretending that you don't love me)

Napanaginip ko Kaplan Lang at ngayong ay natagpuan Nikita. (I dreamed of you and now I have finally found you)

Yes, learning another language was worthwhile, but I can even admit now more than 20 years after being home that my language skills aren't now what they were at that time. Simply put, it is very true that if you don't use it, you do lose it to a substantial degree. I am not saying I have forgotten everything, but I am certain that I do not think of myself as fluent in said language. I find myself having to go back and re-learn words and phrases online that I have long forgotten.

That's why when I see obviously TBM professional biographies on linkedin or other sites such as law firms, they all invariably claim fluency in their mission language even many years afterward, which I know now is BS in probably at least 90% of cases...

Nope,

I learned Korean. Due to how we learned the language and the difficulties an American has learning Korean, I was never going to become fluent anyway. Most missionaries get to a "I think they understand what I'm saying and I can get the gist of what you're saying" by the end of two years living there.

I came back to Arkansas and have since become a software engineer in the Midwest... I'll let you guess how often I've had any opportunity to speak Korean has come up. (Hint, not very much). By now, I have forgotten almost all of it, it didn't take long to go because I just had no need to retain it. I only retain a few key phrases, and even those I'm not too sure about.

I will say that I did take advantage of my P-Days and traveled as much of the country as the rules and my companions would allow.

Was any of that worth losing a full tuition scholarship to a major university so that I could sell the church to people who clearly wanted to be left alone? Nope, not at all.

You can learn a language in school, you'll probably learn it better from people who know what they're doing. If you want to immerse yourself in the culture, take a trip, it's cheaper and you'll get to do the things you want to do and have a better experience.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2016 05:41PM by Finally Free!.

OMG ----- You were a Korean Mish? I should have known!

I was there in the early 70's.

Learning Korean for me was only helpful in being able to 'cram' facts in college at the last minute to look good on tests. Others I served with actually worked in Korea and some seemed to really enjoy the language/Chinese characters and seemed to keep up with both.

A number of my professors told me they were amazed how the day before a test I seemed 'weak in the subject' however after "cramming" I normally significantly 'raised my game'. This was especially true on the 'professional tests' in my area. Where I scored much higher than expected.

Was my 'cramming ability' really improved by learning a foreign language? Who knows? But if someone 'believes' it helped ------ it 'may' have helped.

I studied Korean at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. I did really well in school, graduated with honors and scored a 2 on the DLPT (Defense Language Aptitude Test). As a linguist out of college, I already had three additional languages under my belt. I scored 4 in Spanish, 3 in Italian, and 2 in Portuguese.

Why did I choose Korean, you ask? It paid a nice bonus and the Army needed Korean linguists (as well as German, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic in 1981).

Anyway, I lucked out with a tactical assignment to the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii. It was good for my family; for the most part, they enjoyed living in Paradise and I only had a few deployments each year.

In fact, I hardly ever needed Korean again so my language proficiency suffered. You know what they say, "if you don't use it, you lose it."

As I posted above, I did a stint for Uncle Sam as a Korean linguist though I'd served a mission in Argentina Buenos Aires South (1975-1977).

I'm happy to report that I just retired as a secondary school Spanish teacher after thirty years of junior high and high school teaching in both California and Utah.

After leaving military service, I immediately started teaching, as I had a bachelor's degree in Spanish and I had been a graduate assistant for one year at BYU. In order to get my credential though, I had to take education classes plus 6 additional credit hours in my major at Cal State University Long Beach.

Coincidentally, I realized that I could have had a wonderful college experience in my major outside of BYU. I had the good fortune to teach in California from 1986-1992; however, being in a very TBM marriage, Utah looked like a good prospect to continue my career so we moved to Davis County and I taught for another 24 years.

Since entering the retirement phase of my life, I sometimes wonder what life experiences I would have enjoyed if I'd never learned another language. You see, I was a very poor student in my high school Spanish class so it would never have occurred to me to make teaching Spanish a career. Before my mission, I did have a passing interest in Geology and it still piques my curiosity today. It's one of those things that make you go hmmm.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2016 03:10PM by Keith Vaught.

I grew up middle class American, with some smattering of learning of the Spanish language.

Not only did I learn proficiency in the Spanish language on my mission, I also learned how to fake being Mexican! Both skills gave me an easy way to make a decent living that can't be outsourced.

Plus I had a lot of fun on my mission, the last 10 months, I never lost any sleep and read all I wanted to and listened to all the music I wanted to.

But obviously, 'having fun' is not what the mission is for; I simply replaced the church's purpose with my purpose and never, ever regretted it.

I loved living in France and I love that I have a near native accent in French. It helped me a lot when I went to school in Montréal and surprised the natives that I sounded neither Québecois nor American in French. I learned a lot on my mission about French culture and French history, but the mission sucked so badly!

I would much rather have gone to school there a couple of years, but my parents would have never supported that. It's a shame Mormons will support their kids for 2 years wasting time, but not getting an education abroad.

As far as learning the language, you still need to study it in school to learn the grammar and practice reading and writing skills. RMs can carry a conversation, but their spelling and writing is atrocious without further education.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2016 06:10PM by axeldc.

I did get fluent in French on my mission. Like axeldc, I loved France, loved the culture & people, am glad I can speak the language well.
But it doesn't make the 2 years worth it. Pas du tout!

My wife is also filipina, so I learned Tagalog and Visayan in, um, "self-defense" -- so much time around Filipinos, and I got tired of not understanding. Not quite as fluent in it as French, but close. Then I lived in Japan for a year (before marrying the filipina!), and got pretty good at spoken Japanese, too (written, I'm only about a 1st grader!). Languages are fun. If you're into them, you'll learn them without giving 2 years of your life to a disgusting cult.

No. You don't speak French well. The phrase is "pas de tout," not "pas du tout." If you knew anything about French you would know vowel sounds are critical.

You need to hie yourself back to French class.

Good Lord. Quel poseur.

Pas de deux; pas de tout? Non, ne pas de tout, c'est pas du tout! Not of+the all...le dieu de Google.

Must be an idiom, WTF, I'm trying to learn to speak in Ziller ~SRS

C'est absolument pas du tout, et ce n'est pas pas de tout. :)

T'amo, Bello! ~srs

Je t'aime aussi, mon ami bien doté!

OOh, là là (yes, we really do say that - and "bof";-)

You are correct, Hie and Boner! Pierre le Fou is, as his name indicates, crazy.

It's "pas du tout", no doubt about it. And IfIcouldhietoKolob's last comment shows that he really does speak good, coloquial French ;-)

Tom in Paris

I also served my mission in France.. was in the Paris mission in 86-87 and loved it. It is one of the very few experiences I've had in Mormonism that I do not regret.

I loved learning the language and still use it today for work whenever I travel to the locations my company has there. But my eyes were opened to art, food, sculpture, history, and different ways of thinking. I was truly in a very sheltered cocoon before then. The opening of my mind started oddly enough, on my mission.

Did learning a foreign language make the mission worthwhile? No, but it did provide an opportunity to learn a language that I likely would not have had otherwise, so there's that.

Portuguese is relatively easy for an English speaker to pick up. I kept reading Jorge Amado novels out loud to myself, and returned to Brazil twice over the years, so I am probably more fluent than the average duck, but still nothing to write home about. I could probably get back up to speed in six months in country. Sometimes I am tempted to give it a try. That would be an interesting adventure!

Not really. I spoke Spanish before I went there.

Oh Yes!! A Spanish speaking country.

No. it's great to know another language, but no way was it worth what I went through.

I still know quite a bit of German, even though I stopped studying it a long time ago . I like how you can hear each word separately , vs French, which runs words together , do it's hard to pick up where one word begins and another ends.
I tried learning French on my own, I stopped a few months ago and I can't remember a word , German, I still know a lot.
We're going to Canada in a month, and I'm freaking out because I can't learn it to save my life.

Donnez-moi de la bier, s'il vous plait...I don't speak French but this will get you some beer, cheers!

I was sent to a French-speaking mission. LDS people of my acquaintance at the time spoke of how wonderful this opportunity was for me to learn a new language.

Bit of a problem there. I started studying French at age 12. By the time I was called to the mission, I was already fluent.

It was a nice side benefit to a generally bad experience.

Though I didn't see it that way at the time, the LDS Church sucked, but there was quite a bit to admire about Germany.

I learned German, and was able to put that skill to use in my early career--but not as often now. I still like being able to watch and understand German music and movies (most of which LDS Inc. would not consider meeting their "standards").

Learning another language is also a way to open your mind to new possibilities. In a sense, it is a method of relearning and reinterpreting the world, which causes you to questions the assumptions of things one takes for granted. In other words, it's a gateway to apostasy.

So "Be Cool Speak Deutsch" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-w0-lZldWA

Fun video!

Oui

I was privileged to be a mission Mormonary in the earliest days of the Italian Mission, and got to learn Italian. But nothing will ever serve to have made my mission worthwhile, unless it's the fact that it largely served to protect me from going to Vietnam.

Went to Japan. Never got great at the language, but good enough, I guess. I've taken a few classes since, but nothing serious, but I do enjoy the opportunities to use the little I remember.

But no, it wasn't worth doing missionary work.

Although the average TBM thinks missionaries are "fluent" I soon realized that was far from the truth. I went to Japan and could get by but no one really gets fluent. I studied some after the mission including more focus on the written Kanji since as missionaries our whole focus was conversational and limited to religious vocabulary.

Was it worth it? Probably not. The one thing I took away from missionary work was an interest in languages. But I suspect I would have had that anyway.

It was a tremendous experience to learn Mandarin Chinese during a mission in Taiwan. And not just the language - the entire experience of living in the Orient in a foreign culture and learning so much about a very different people. And of course the many (well the good ones) experiences with people and faith. It was a unique experience within a faith based community and having a faith based paradigm.

Of course I was a different person then I was very young and very TBM.

Now am an agnostic and have a hugely different viewpoint. But I am richer and better understand so much about people and faith because I served an LDS mission. As an agnostic I have a more balanced viewpoint for how things look from the other side.

It is a paradox. But I am grateful to the LDS Church for providing an unusual opportunity to a young man who never would have done anything remotely like this without being Mormon.

Disclaimer: While bullshit happened my mission was well administrated with no mission president horror stories. In fact they were pretty good dudes.

Disclaimer: Said gratitude does not release LDS Inc. for liability for their many other sins. As I said it is a paradox.

as well. Loved Taiwan, loved the people, loved learning Chinese, hated being a missionary. On balance, still worth it.

My Stepson went to Taiwan. He speaks reads and writes Mandarin pretty fluently. He's taken classes since he came back that have kept him up to speed. He does a fair amount of translating with his job, so speaking Mandarin has been a good thing for him.

No.

What do you mean by "fluent"? Most missionaries become fluent in conversational Spanish, Portuguese, etc..., meaning they speak smoothly and comfortably, they're not translating in their head, needing people to repeat things, etc... However, missionaries don't master their mission languages. They typically leave their missions with the vocabulary of a preschool or early elementary school kid.

Early in my mission I would carry around a small notebook. I wrote down every word I heard or saw each day so I could look them up later. It wasn't long before I had a pretty decent vocabulary and rarely heard a word I didn't understand. I thought I was doing pretty good until I got home and took some college classes where we actually had to read novels, history books, news articles, etc... I quickly realized how poor my language skills actually were. Then I started working and realized that I didn't have the vocabulary to discuss anything work-related. It's nice that I could travel back to my mission country and be comfortable talking to people, but still not worth it.

Shinehahbeam Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> However, missionaries don't master their mission
> languages. They typically leave their missions
> with the vocabulary of a preschool or early
> elementary school kid.

I agree most are that way. But not all.

I eagerly read Victor Hugo and Jules Verne in the original French. I picked up college-level books on the obscure parts of French grammar. I asked people I met to challenge me. I probably devoted myself to the language more than to the "work." :)

I had an advantage, having French ancestry and 4 years of French in high school before going. There were other missionaries I encountered who were just as passionate about the language, though they were the minority.

I did learn it well enough to test out of 2 years of college French (100% on both tests) when I got back. The French prof at Cal State Fullerton initially wasn't going to let me test out -- then we had a 30-minute conversation in French, and she ended up admitting I spoke it better than she did, so she relented!

I don't know if that's the right question.

I grew up in a black/white religion and was prone to black/white thinking in the first place! Not a good combination.

After much personal evolution I finally realized I live in a very gray world. No experience is all good or bad. My realization was that a tendency to black/think think is a product of hating uncertainty. I am finally learning to live with uncertainty.

I really cherish that I know a foreign language (Spanish) and associated culture. I love language including my native English. I listen to nerdy podcasts like Lexicon Valley because language is huge part of understanding who we are.

If I hadn't been a Mo missionary, I'm not sure I would have been down that path. Did I have to be a Mo missionary to have that experience? No! My DD who was never been a missionary and speaks Spanish better that I do! She just has an incredible passion for it. She studies at BYU as an art major and speaks better than most RMs. She really has the gift.

My mission was a mixed bag. Did learning a language and foreign culture make it worthwhile? The question seems irrelevant.

I'd studied foreign languages for years, and really really hoped to go foreign. Of course not. I got sent stateside, English speaking. It was one of the greatest disappointments of my life, actually. So don't kid yourself that your language abilities would necessarily have given you an opportunity to learn a foreign language.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2016 11:04AM by alyssum.

After getting home from his mission, he went to university, got a teaching job, and taught high school Spanish for years.

Before retiring from school, he went to night classes and became certified to do mental health counseling. He doesn't work for a clinic; he free-lances. And he does bilingual counseling.

I speak Spanish too, but mine has gotten a bit rusty since I retired. However, sometimes Spanish-speaking clients call DH at home, and his fluency is still awesome.

It's funny that we have slightly different accents. His is Guatemalan. Mine is Jaliscan (I lived in Guadalajara as an exchange student.) We live in NM, where a lot of people speak Spanish as their first language, and the local accent has some characteristics of its own that we have both picked up.

I didn't learn Spanish on a mission. I wasn't Mormon then. I majored in it in college, and then used it for 30 years on the job. (My Spanish is a lot saltier than his, when necessary.)

I had two years of college German under my belt when I went to Switzerland. I got sufficiently fluent in standard German ("Buehnendeutsch")that some of the Swiss, who primarily speak their own dialect ("Schwiezerduetsch") could mistake me for German. Never did pick up much of the dialect, although I got to the point I could understand most of it.

Anyway, I read some of the German classic literature while still on the mission and took some classes after I got back. I continue to read stories, newspapers, and other literature regularly. I was pleasantly surprised to find 40 years later when DW and I toured Switzerland and Austria that I could still converse easily.

But I could have learned the language at least as well as a student in the area as I did on the mission. There are any number of better ways to experience immersion in a foreign language.

Bottom line: knowing German has enriched my life. But I still feel I paid a terrific price to gain the knowledge. And I'm still resentful.

That's-still-2 1/2-years-I'll-never-get-back-ly yrs,

S

I've lost most of my Filipino/Tagalog. That said, I can't say I've ever mastered it. I've never been good with languages and most of my mission was spent in and around Metro Manila where even some of the poor and downtrodden (i.e. my target audience) could understand some basic words and phrases in English. It was only during the few months I spent in the probinsya did I ever feel "immersed."

That hasn't stopped me from putting it on my resume, though!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2016 11:26AM by levantlurker.

levantlurker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've lost most of my Filipino/Tagalog.


Kung ano ang isang kahihiyan!

There are times I've wished I'd done my mission in PI, I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more. The irreligious French did, however, teach me that it was OK to disdain and even criticize religion, a step on the way out of the cult for me.

I find Tagalog to be a beautiful, expressive language though. So glad I've learned it :)

Alam ko :(

I can't ever hate my mission because it introduced me to this country and its people. I doubt it would have ever been on my list of travel destination, and yet I did my honeymoon in Boracay and Palawan!

Manila I found to be a large, polluted, ugly city. Did plenty of tracking around Smokey Mountain (while the girls got the posher areas - Makati, Pasig, etc.), but the countryside was breathtakingly beautiful. What really did it for me was the Filipino people. Whatever angst or frustration I experienced was soothed by the incredible warmth of the locals. And crispy pata. Lots of crispy pata.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2016 08:27AM by levantlurker.

Tagalog is a beautiful language. Bisaya, or Cebuano, not so much.

Hindi defeated me, learning the Devanagari script is almost impossible.

Brother had two years of high school French, so it came as no surprise he was called to the Paris, France mission.

He loved his mission, and is a BIC TBM to this day. He considered it two of the best years of his life.

He didn't make a single convert, but the Catholics were very generous and kind to the mishies in their neighborhood.

In place of wine he drank bottled soda pop during his tenure there. The water was too foul to drink, and unless they boiled their water, that was in the days before bottled water became a staple.

I'm surprised at this, Amyjo:

"The water was too foul to drink, and unless they boiled their water, that was in the days before bottled water became a staple."

When was your brother in Paris?

I've been here since 1983 and I've always drunk the water with no problems.

Tom in Paris

He was there in 1974-75. Maybe it was his flat water pipes. Missionaries live on a shoe string budget. He said the water went through rusty pipes now that you mention it. They didn't buy bottled water. He drank soda pop instead. Unless he boiled his water, which was an option.

He wasn't able to drink the wine of course. But he could enjoy French cuisine while he was there. And that he did!

:))



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2016 01:12PM by Amyjo.

I went to Brasil in 1968, learned portuguese sort of down at the old LTM. I had never ever had any language all the way through high school, although I did have some instruction in Russian in the 6th grade. Da or Nyet?

I was worried about learning it but did pretty well, until I got there and didn't understand a damn thing. It took about 60 days to feel comfortable speaking it and understanding the locals.

About 18 months in, I was "called" to help some elders who were struggling with the language. Not sure I helped.

I came home, had a couple of friends from Brasil and it was fun talking to them

I worked at ZCMI with a woman from Curitiba, who was married to a missionary that she knew from there. He went back after a year to bring her back to Utah. They are a sweet couple, and she insists on speaking portugese to me when I see them.(and relevant of nothing, they have 2 adult daughters who are gorgeous)

I love "musica brasileira", samba, bossa nova, stuff like that. But it didn't do me much good in real life. Like someone else said, it did get me out of Vietnam.

Learning the language was a bonus. What made the mission worthwhile was learning another culture outside of my own Mormon bubble. Lots of my companions constantly put the people down in private conversations. I was in awe of the people, the place, the new view.

Another bonus was finding out I could work diligently at something I hated doing that actually felt wrong to me. Still two years was a high price to pay.

Yes, it was worth it. Taiwan, mandarin. I loved the people, the food, the Buddist temples, well the culture in general. I cried like a baby when I left and saw the island get further and further away. Kaoshiung mission.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2016 06:43PM by aquarius123.

I served a Stateside mission in the 60s. No foreign language but missionaries had such a colloquial language that the mission president once remarked they were considering making it a 2 1/2 year mission so we could learn the language.

I learned spanish. I don't use it that much and have forgotten a lot of words. I can pick out phrases and some words on the radio or in casual conversations I hear at walmart. I don't go out of my way to practice the language. Most of the vocabulary was church related anyway.