I just woke up and remembered a dream I was having… in Swahili. It wasn’t all Swahili but it’s a sign that I’m on my way to being fluent. You always hear people talking about whether they can dream in a language other than their mother tongue, so it must be a significant event. I was never fluent in Spanish, but after studying it for five years and growing up in San Diego I probably got pretty close. Having said that, I don’t remember having any dreams in Español.
As far as I can remember the dream, I was at a movie theater somewhere. I think I had snuck in and gotten kicked out, or I dunno. The part I remember is telling some little Kenyan kid ukiingia utachapwa (“if you enter you will get hit”). That’s all I remember. Maybe I wasn’t sneaking in, maybe I was working there, who knows. Anyways, let’s hope I have more dreams in Swahili because it’s a pretty funny phenomenon.
On a side note, my Spanish sucks now. Any simple sentence I try to create in my head comes out in Swahili. Oh well. Hopefully it’s still in there somewhere.
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Lover of Linux, death metal and Indian food, blogs about living and working in Nairobi, Kenya.
I think you’re well on your way to becoming fluent… however, I don’t know how much dreams are a sign of that. I used to dream in (incoherent) french, but I was terrible at it! Anyway, I like that your dreams include yelling at a kid :)
This made me think of language and thought;like which comes first?We tend to think(may be even dream) in the language we speak,so in this case it would mean that at that time,Swahili was dominant in your speech,thoughts and hence dreams.Apart from that, this also means you are not in kindergarten as far as learning Swahili is concerned.
Hah, I think only you can judge whether I’m in kindergarten as far as learning Swahili. You, on the other hand are obviously well into college in English (and apparently German… “kindergarten”).
Adios (Spanish), haha!