Language: French and Wolof

Last week, we were assigned our languages and started a very intensive learning process. For business volunteers (like myself), we are required to be both sufficient in French and a local language.

Luckily my PC recruiter encouraged me to take some French while still at school, which helped. Also, PC gave us access to Rosetta Stone, so I spent about 40 hours before I left the USA.

What exactly are “sufficient” language requirements? PCVs are required to reach the level of intermediate-mid, which basically means you are able to have some basic conversations, talk about your family, and survive. Vocabulary and grammar are not 100% correct, but manageable mistakes are made at this level of language.

For me, I tested beyond the intermediate-mid level of French, so my language I was assigned to learn was Wolof.

Wolof is probably the most widely spoken African language spoken in this country. It’s very similar to French and uses many of the same vocabulary words, just much different accents and consonants. But the language as a whole is not terribly difficult, just a bit overwhelming right now. We’re in language classes 6.5 days/week, go home to chat with the family (as much as my broken French and Wolof allow), and have homework to study as well. So I’m staying very busy. At the same time, our training program is designed to have us speaking at a sufficient level in just 9 weeks.

The class is conducted in French, so I'm quickly improvin that language as well. Pretty soon, I may be trilingual...

Please wish me luck, because if my Wolof does not test high enough to reach Intermediate-Mid, I cannot start my PC service.

Finally, for the next few months, you can call me by the name: Gora Mbaay. It’s the Senegalese name my family gave to me :)

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Byron Yee
Peace Corps Trainee - Senegal, 2009