Motivation

Every morning on my way to my school, I go up a long flight of stone stairs. I'm an ungainly person, so I tend to look down at my feet as I climb, and I generally have a lot to think about too, so I am always lost in thought. And because of this, I invariably don't see the cleaner, the lone person up as early as I am, until I am almost past her. She is a woman about my age who looks as though she could tell a story or two. She wears a bright red headscarf over her pitch-black hair, and she is very light on her feet, so I never hear her coming. And -- shame on me! -- the following exchange takes place every single time:

Me (Flustered and caught off guard) Oh -- good morning!

Cleaner (Pointedly) Günaydın!

Every single time this happens, I cringe. Here I am in this woman's country and I cannot even manage a simple greeting in Turkish! What kind of self-respecting resident alien am I?

I've been here for almost three months now and I cannot even manage Good morning in Turkish. Because my Turkish is nowhere near basic. After three months in Japan, I knew greetings, seasons, the days of the week, even a few proverbs. I could make simple sentences, ask for directions, get train tickets, order meals, and even understand some of the conversations I heard around me. It is true that I studied Japanese before I went to Japan, but I had to get a kick-start on Japanese, given the different writing system, so I don't really count that. It is also true that I am much older than I was when I started Japanese, but I don't count that either; I am convinced that even with my aging brain I can still learn a language if I put my mind to it. Personally, I'd like to blame my teenagers, both the ones I teach and the ones I live with -- they get me so bamboozled and take up so much of my time -- but deep inside, I know very well that they're not the reason.

In fact, my failure to learn Turkish might be a combination of all the above factors, but I suspect the main problem is that I have no real motivation to learn. When I lived in Japan, I lived by myself with only a handful of English-speaking colleagues to converse with for a few minutes every day. Very few people around me spoke English and none of my neighbors did. I quickly discovered that I needed Japanese if I wanted to get my toilet unblocked in a hurry or find the one brand of orange juice that didn't have added sugar. Learning Japanese also gave me a means of making friends, and because I was very lonely on my own, this became a huge motivation.

Here, I live with my family and have no time to be lonely, so where is my motivation?

Motivation is a huge factor in learning a language. Years ago, one of my fellow English teachers commuted to a factory in Japan every Wednesday to teach a group of engineers there. Like a lot of Japanese men, the ones she taught tended to put in ten- and twelve-hour work days. They were perpetually sleepy and exhausted, and the last thing they wanted to do was learn how to speak a language they were convinced they would never need. She planned the most useful, interesting, stimulating lessons she knew how to plan, but her class remained a group of disgruntled, monosyllabic drudges who could hardly open their mouths without yawning. Then one day they got the news that their company was planning to open a factory in Wales. Some of them would be needed there. Overnight, the drudges turned into driven, committed men. They stopped sleeping in class, sat up straight in their seats, and greeted her with enthusiastic smiles every morning. Every session fairly zinged with energy and good cheer. Wednesday quickly went from being the day she dreaded going to work to her favorite day of the week.

I envied my friend from the bottom of my heart. As it happened, I also taught a group of engineers at a factory, in Morioka. I used to have fantasies about their company building a factory in an English-speaking country, but it never happened. Every Tuesday, I set off to work with a heavy heart; on my last day there, I don't know who was the most relieved -- me or my fifteen miserable students.

By far the most motivated class I ever taught was a small group of housewives whose children all attended the same middle school. This little group of women had formed and bonded when their children were tiny and they had decided that one day, when their children were old enough, they would learn English. When their husbands retired, the four of them planned to see the world together. "What about your husbands?" I asked, but they laughed. "They don't want to go to places where they can't use Japanese!" Every week, these women brought me articles they wanted to discuss -- all of them as eclectic and interesting as could be. We discussed bullying in schools, race relations in America, Japan and South Africa, Machu Picchu, pedigreed dogs versus mutts, cooking, fairy tales, poisonous snakes and spiders, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Never have I had a group of students so dedicated or passionate about learning English: they were motivated to learn because they had a dream.

No doubt about it: I need a dream. I need motivation.

Here is how much Turkish I have learned thus far: I can ask someone if she can speak English and I can tell her that I cannot speak Turkish. I can say my name and ask for someone else's name. I can ask if there are persimmons, apples, or bread in the market; I can count to 29. I know how to say good morning, good day, good evening, and good night, but the sad truth is that I never remember which is which half the time. I can say please, bon appetit, and thank you, order a cup of coffee or a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. I know the words for water, trash, cat, lazy, new, open, closed.

Now, what I know may not be much, but you've got to start somewhere, right? And nothing is as motivating as someone who doesn't speak your own language. My Turkish colleagues all speak beautiful English, but the cleaning lady is the perfect person to start with. And while I can't very well order a glass of orange juice from her, I can certainly wish her a good morning in Turkish. And who knows? Maybe we'll go from simple greetings to brief exchanges about the weather -- and beyond.

So last Monday, I got my Günaydın! ready. I rolled it around in my mouth a few times, repeating it nervously under my breath as I began my ascent, one eye out for the cleaner in her bright red headscarf.

She was not there.

On Tuesday, I was ready for her again, but sadly, our paths did not cross. On Wednesday, it happened: she was there, cleaning pail in one hand, a cigarette in the other, her shiny red headscarf bright under the December sun.

I smiled bravely and took a deep breath. "Günaydın!"

She took a drag on her cigarette and smiled back. "Good morning!"