Iguazu Falls, Photo: Wikicommons
Becky and I are planning to travel to Brazil this fall, and we are very much looking forward to the trip. We will spend about half our time visiting our friends, some of whom we have known for 25 years, in Belo Horizonte and the other half playing tourists, which we have never done in our many trips to Brazil. Specifically, we will be staying near Iguazu Falls (seen in the photo above) in the south of Brazil along the border with Argentina and Paraguay.
In addition to getting various reservations in order, both of us have gotten out our figurative oil cans to lubricate our rusty Brazilian Portuguese before the trip. Old CDs (remember them?) from long ago and some remarkably good You Tube courses that, like You Tube itself, were not around when we first began to learn some basic Portuguese nearly 25 years ago.
The vocabulary lists are like meeting a friend you haven’t seen in a long time. “Oh, yeah,” we say. So many things come back quickly. The grammar is still grammar. I will concentrate on past, present, and future tenses. The past imperfect subjunctive will have to wait for another trip.
They say that memorization, repetition, and contextualization are key components of learning a language. I don’t need to know how to say, “my wife is the manager of a multinational bank,” but in doing so I learn some vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure. I do need to know that, depending on context, “não legal” may mean something is not legal or that it’s just not cool. I’ll need to take time to study every day between now and October if I am to communicate well with friends and others in Brazil.
Memorization, repetition, and contextualization are key components to learning the language of God, as well. Indeed, as the writer of Hebrews reminds us, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…” (Hebrews 1:1-2). So, as we listen over and over again to the words of the prophets and follow day after day the one who is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), we learn the vocabulary of God and the grammar of God. We learn what it means in the context of our world when we hear God promise Joshua on the far side of the Jordan, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5).
We learn the language of God through memorization, repetition, and contextualization. In this season of Eastertide we may still sing the words of the ancient hymn,
Our hearts be pure from evil,
that we may see aright
the Lord in rays eternal
of resurrection light;
and listening to his accents,
may hear, so calm and plain,
his own “All hail!” and, hearing,
may raise the victor strain.
May I learn all the more to listen to his accents that I may hear so calm and plain.
One of the examples the language course offers of a past imperfect subjunctive in Brazilian Portuguese is, “Se eu tivesse estudado mais, teria passado o exame.” “If I had studied more, I would have passed the test.” (tivesse estudado – had studied – is the past imperfect subjunctive.)
Whatever the grammar, I need to study Brazilian Portuguese and the language of God in Scripture all the more if I am to pass the test.