Kaselelhlia!

Hello! I started language training a week and a half ago, so I know that kaselelhlia means hello. And I know a few other things. If any of you are itching to learn Pohnpeian, let me know and I’ll send you some of my notes after training. As with most languages, Pohnpeian is complicated and has a ton of exceptions and irregularities. Whenever I get frustrated with these things, I try to remind myself that English is the same way. And then I remember I will have to explain all of our irregularities, etc. to my students soon and get to freak out about something new!
There are 7 of us learning Pohnpeian and 2 instructors so we definitely benefit from the small class size. I am in a class with Nate and Amanda and our instructor, Antero, is teaching us a lot. Once we get to our sites, we will only really be speaking Pohnpeian so it is nice not to have to worry too much about spelling. There is still a lot of grammar though. For example, there are 6 pronouns that mean mine… 2 for general items (with no set rules to know which to use), 1 for food, 1 for drinks, 1 for vehicles, and 1 for a house. And for those 6 ways, there are the related pronouns for yours, theirs, ours. Not fun.
I just hope that Pohnpeian can be my first successful attempt at learning a second language… and think about the benefits for my résumé!