The sound of a sick rattlesnake—that is how I end up sounding when I try to roll my r’s, which is why I usually do not like to attempt the trill in front of people. I already knew that the magical flickering of the tongue was not in my repertoire, based on my previous experience with Spanish. I devised a way to mimic the sound, but a true long trill? I cannot.

Then I learned that Khmer, the language of Cambodia, has rolled r’s. I simply cannot get away from this sound! Add an ng sound in the back of your throat, a lazy e, a smiling o, and foreign grammar rules, and well, that is the challenge of language learning!

That is also the pressure I feel when I sit down on the gym floor to eat breakfast. I love this Asian style of eating cross-legged on colorful mats laid in rows. But here, as I chew, Khmer echoes in the space around me. Some days, the echoes get to me, and I wonder how I can ever really make an impact when it takes me so long to be able to say so little. I can ask kids their names, how old they are and what their favorite color is, but that is about it so far. But does knowing a little pony-tailed girl’s favorite color is pink tell her about Jesus?

In reality, quite a few people here speak some English. Learning English in elementary and high school is common here, and I can often use English to communicate with some of the staff. Even in this town, the sellers are used to tourists, and they punch the number into their calculator without having to speak Khmer and see my confused look. Not knowing Khmer is still a significant disadvantage, but, really, I could probably get away with mainly using English for a year.

So if I could get by with English, why put in the effort to learn Khmer, risking mistakes and embarrassment—like realizing I have been counting one, two, rice instead of one, two, three?

As I swung in my hammock, reading my Bible one morning, this verse reminded me of why. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1). The part about the tongues of men became that much more real for me, being in another country where I do not know the native tongue. My mind drifted through memories of the past two months: sharing smiles with my homeroom teacher, laughing and giving high fives to sparkling-eyed kindergartners between classes, and enthusiastically singing My God Is So Great with the neighborhood kids. Sure, I had not spoken much of the Khmer tongue in these situations. But maybe I had done something. Maybe I had spoken the language of love.

My eyes continued down the passage, and I kept thinking. I made my way down to the last verse. “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” I scrunched my eyebrows. Wait a second, if faith is what saves us, then how is love the greatest? I metaphorically cocked my head and then looked back over the chapter. Love is patient, love is kind, love suffers long . . . and then it clicked. Faith without works is dead. Faith without love is dead. The love is in the action.

So why do I put in the work of learning Khmer? Because my effort is an act of love. Moments like my homeroom teacher thanking me for trying to learn her language remind me that it is not about speaking perfectly, but about showing I care enough to try.

Somehow, God uses the language of love to speak through me, and at the very same time, my efforts at language learning are a way of speaking love, too. God can use me even if I do not know much of the language, and at the same time help me to learn even more, so I can share more.

So if you will please excuse me, I must go and practice Khmer. I have some r-rolling to do. Oh, and before I even mastered the language, knowing that the little pony-tailed girl’s favorite color is pink made her day. I was speaking love.

• Twitter