We’ve spent enough time in Kovol now that daily greetings (and the dialect differences) have started to sink in.
While we weren’t giving our full-time attention to language while we were building houses and settling in, building relationships was a goal and a few phrases here and there go a long way!
We call things like daily greetings ‘practical expressions’ and we just memorize them. Usually, in our language learning style we’re making sure that we understand what we’re saying, learning doesn’t happen by repeating what we hear with no understanding. We make sure we understand what we’re hearing and saying and try work at a level where we’re at ‘understanding plus 1’, which means we’re a little out of our comfort zone and learning, but not overwhelmed.