We have been working on the language for about 2 years now. It has been a blessing to see our language skills greatly increase in the last few months as we have started work in our new church. Moving from an English-based work to a Twi-based work has really pushed us and helped us.
One challenging part of learning Twi is that it is a tonal language. This means that you can have two words that are spelled exactly the same, but by raising the sounds or dropping the sounds the meaning of the word can change. In Twi we have three tones for each consonant and three tones and two sounds for each vowel.
Let me tell you a little story to explain how one sound can make a big difference. I was preaching about 6 months ago in our old church. I normally preached only in English (in that church), but I was trying to work on my language skills and was trying to preach the sermon in Twi (with English subtitles :) ).lI came to a point in the sermon where I was trying to communicate to the people the joy of Christ, and I used a local expression. Yesu eye de! That was supposed to mean that Jesus is very sweet to the taste. I repeated the statement about three times for impact. After the sermon I found out that I had used the wrong sound and instead of saying, "Jesus is sweet!," I had said (and very loudly, I might add), "Jesus is noisy!"
Language learning is a challenge, but it is a blessing. It teaches you so much about yourself and your people.
Here is a little free Twi lesson. In Twi tones are important, as I said. Each one of these words is spelled and sounded out the same way, but by raising, dropping, or holding the tone, you change the meaning of the word. Here are a few examples:
Twi: English
papa: good, father, fan, man, to patu
akonta: arithmetic, brother-in-law
esono: It is different, elephant
boa: to tell a lie, to help
hwe: something, to whip
fa: to take, to be hoarse
nsa: hand, alcohol
kura: co-wife, to hide
As you can see, one word can make all the difference!
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