Arabic

I have come to terms that this is a language beyond my capability of learning and for the most part, all the words sound the same to me, or like they are clearing their throat. It is funny to me how I listen carefully when people try to talk to me as if I listen hard enough I will understand what they are saying. Sometimes when I am working with my students and I am really frustrated because I want them to understand what I am saying, I will blurt the desired phrase in Spanish. After 3 months of living in this Arabic world, these are the words or phrases I have either found necessary to learn or have stumbled across. Here are they are in English form: (I will put a “*” next to the words I use daily)

1. yes*

2. no*

3. I don’t know (this took a lot of work to memorize for some reason)

4. A little*

5. Enough/the end/that’s it!

6. Right*

7. Left*

8. Straight forward*

9. Stop here*

10. Thank you*

11. See you later

12. Peach (it’s a fun word to say) “mish mish”

13. road

14. 9

15. can you

16. I want

17. I don’t want

18. here

19. where?

20. my love (girl and boy version)…”habibti” and “habibi”

21. water

22. look here

23. my name is

24. this

25. I

26. ok *

27. God willing

28. what is this

29. very good

30. my life

31. change

I am actually impressed as I write these out, of how little I know, but how what I have learned can really help me answer people. Probably half the Egyptians that talk to me first try to speak to me in Arabic assuming that I know how to speak it. Some of the phrases I had to learn because I am working with 4 year olds and they don’t understand that I only speak English. The other day during class, my aide informed me that one of my students was trying to speak to me in Arabic, but using a really bad accent (as if a foreigner was speaking Arabic) thinking I would understand her…not quite, I thought that was so clever.