1. To have a human conversation with Hamdy, the school’s driver. He and I spend a lot of time together - stuck in traffic mostly - and it would be nice to be able to ask him about his family and if he enjoyed his weekend once in a while.
2. To make my life a little easier here by being able to communicate with people around town, shopkeepers, taxis etc.
I have no delusions to try to learn to read or write Arabic, at this point. You do realize it’s written in script backwards, right? And I have already mentioned the ubiquitous misspellings all over town. We’ll tackle that one another day.
Not surprisingly, I find Arabic a difficult language to learn, but I am enjoying the lessons.
My teacher says it’s a “rich, flowery and very specific language.” That’s a nice way of saying it’s complicated and there is TONS of vocabulary. For example, there is a different word for an aunt who is your mother’s sister versus your father’s sister, or married to your father’s brother. This is good, to be so specific but in my opinion a bit excessive for my communication needs at the moment.
One of my biggest challenges with Arabic is that there are male and female versions of EVERYTHING - nouns, pronouns and adjectives (I haven’t gotten to verbs yet but I’m sure there too). For example, both ente and enta mean you, but you use only one depending on if you are speaking to a male of female; and the articles “the” and “a” have male and female versions depending if the noun it preceeds is masculine or feminine – dee or da.
I have no delusions to try to learn to read or write Arabic, at this point. You do realize it’s written in script backwards, right? And I have already mentioned the ubiquitous misspellings all over town. We’ll tackle that one another day.
Not surprisingly, I find Arabic a difficult language to learn, but I am enjoying the lessons.
My teacher says it’s a “rich, flowery and very specific language.” That’s a nice way of saying it’s complicated and there is TONS of vocabulary. For example, there is a different word for an aunt who is your mother’s sister versus your father’s sister, or married to your father’s brother. This is good, to be so specific but in my opinion a bit excessive for my communication needs at the moment.
One of my biggest challenges with Arabic is that there are male and female versions of EVERYTHING - nouns, pronouns and adjectives (I haven’t gotten to verbs yet but I’m sure there too). For example, both ente and enta mean you, but you use only one depending on if you are speaking to a male of female; and the articles “the” and “a” have male and female versions depending if the noun it preceeds is masculine or feminine – dee or da.
Ana mabsuuTa = I’m happy*
Enta mabsuuT = You’re happy (masculine)
Ente mabsuuTa = You’re happy (feminine)
Howwa mabsuuT = He’s happy
Heyya mabsuuTa = She’s happy
eHna mabsuuTeen = We’re all happy
Homma mabsuuTeen = They’re all happy
This whole masculine feminine practice is foreign to Englis-only speakers but common in many other languages. And I eventually mastered it in Spanish, los amingos. So I have faith I will get it here too. But at the moment it confounds me.
Anyway, back to my goals. Since I started the classes everyone at work now wants to help me learn Arabic. They insist I try to speak Arabic and correct my pronunciation – a lot. Even Hamdy has joined in the lessons. He’ll point out things we see on the street and teach me the Arabic words and I’ll teach him the English words. Sometimes if we have time – or not – he’ll take a different route just so we can see new scenery and learn new words. It’s fun!
One night on the way home from work an Egyptian co-worker was in the car with us. Hamdy and I were “chatting” away – in broken English and Arabic. The Egyptian looked from me to Hamdy and back again. And was shocked to hear that we understood one another. He said, “I have no idea what the two of you are talking about but you seem understand each other. I think you created your own language.”
Works for us!
I am happy to report that Hamdy has two children, they are doing fine and they enjoy their weekends. At least I that’s what I hear when he tells it.
PS – Oh yeah. I am studying colloquial Arabic so no one outside of Egypt will ever be able to understand me. And apparently no one outside of Hamdy’s car will either. :-)
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