As I reflect on this past year, I am so, so thankful for the opportunity to learn a new language, and for the opportunity to speak to people about what I love in that language! This year has been a year of tremendous change, but as I am looking back, it is a joy to see how the Father has worked in my life through that change! Though maybe not so funny at the time, I am thankful also to have many stories of making mistakes in the language. My dad encouraged me since I was learning Spanish as a kid to laugh at my mistakes because SOCKS (or in Spanish, that’s just the way it is). Mistakes and funny stories like these bring me a lot of joy as I look back. Here are some of the funnier highlights of my language learning journey this year…
May:
- “seif/Seif” (a harder, deeper “s” sound): sword/summer
- “Ana andi fara7 (frekh), fara7 (frekh), fara7 (frekh) fi qalbi.”: I’ve got the joy (chicken), joy (chicken), joy (chicken) down in my heart.
- “uTa/iTa”: cat/chips or pieces
- “ingeezi/ingleezi”: Hurry up/english (language)
- “rigli maksura/rigli magnuna w mabsuta”: broken leg/crazy happy leg
- “garrab/garab”: try (vb)/flea
- “ysibnee/ysalee”: I curse you/I pray
- “tokhina/takhina”: shoot us/fat
- “ehlekee/aliki”: go on fire/with me
June:
Recovery from my ankle injury has been slow but steady- every day, my ankle is better! Though I still have a long ways to go, I am now able to have a normal routine again (as normal as it was before I got hurt)! When I last wrote, I mentioned that I was getting ready to visit doctors to figure out what has going on. I was able to navigate the X-ray office with my language teacher, who helped tremendously (when I got in the exam room, I thought, I think they said where is the injury…I’ll say here…whoops, they asked how I was doing…I’ll still say here).
August:
Ba’ra: “I read” (present tense)
Ba’ara: “Cow”
(Teeeeechnically, a very small, hard-to-pronounce difference)
Something I say all too frequently in conversations: “I cow” (no real meaning in Arabic)
(For someone who loves to read, this is a struggle and a half)
People in my country love to play on words also, so here is a frequent conversation I have because of this word (it is hard because I love to read, and so I use this verb quite a bit)…
Me: Ana kunt ba’ra… (I was reading…)
Other person: Ente ba’ra? (You’re a cow?)
Me: La, ana b7ab el ktob (No, I love books)
Other: Bs ente ultili ente cuntee ba’ra (But you told me you were a cow)
November:
Recently I have been dunked into a new layer of culture and language in classes and in my environment, and I observed that some people, when they say “aiwa” (yes) sometimes just say a rhythmic “aa” in place of it, talking over the other person in a sense to say yes. I thought that this was cool, and would give me more credibility in the language, so I decided to adopt it into my language practice. Little did I realize that this is also the noise that I make when I am thinking deeply about something...
I was sitting in a taxi giving the driver directions to an intersection close to my house, he asks me a question, and I responded with, “Aaaaa…la (no).” He was taken aback, and started to laugh, asking me another question; I did the same, and he laughed again. In that moment I realized that I had been confusing taxi drivers since the moment I decided to do that. I told my teacher, and she told me to keep my mouth shut when I am thinking so that I can prevent confusion in the future with “Mmmmm…la” instead of an emphatic “yes no!”
Lesson learned…
-Aaa: yes
-Aiwa: yes
-La: no
-Mmm: Wait a minute, I’m still thinking
-Uuuh: see Aaa
Blessings to you in this New Year- may God show himself strongly as you reflect on this past year and enter into a new season!