16 September 2011
Jabal Amman, Jordan
Rainbow street
2:40pm
Greetings,
This Friday finds me very nearly fully recovered and back at the old Turtle Green cafe, drinking over-priced tea and abusing the free wifi. Since I was heartily embarrassed in Arabic class on Wednesday, I've devoted the entire day to learning Arabic (and blogging).
In class on Wednesday my professor- a 28 year old Jordanian woman who speaks three languages, has the intelligence level comparable to that of a brain surgeon, and has eyes and and a soul cold and hard enough to sink the Titanic- told me to read a short paragraph aloud. In Arabic. "I can't" I told her simply. "why not?" she asked indignantly. "I don't know all the letters." she gave me a look that withered part of my life force and asked someone else to read. Not Barbara's best academic moment (in my defense I WAS sick).
So here I am at the TGC forcing my brain to learn a language that is totally foreign to me. Learning a whole new alphabet makes me feel like I'm 5 again. I have it written on a card and am forcing myself to commit it to memory as I read- at a pace that would embarrass most mollusks- short passages about Rima and Yousef and where they work and where they live and what food they like, all from my Arabic level 1 text book. It's dreadful.
In a way though, it is a little bit thrilling. I've always been an avid reader, and for years I've wondered what it felt like the moment that the lines of print on a page turned into words that contained actual meaning. I learned to read English so long ago that I had no concept of the feeling at all, it was like trying to remember what my first breath felt like.
I love words. I love words and sounds and letters and the excitement that comes from learning to take a bunch of symbols and put them together in a way that no one ever has before and create something that is totally my own. Learning Arabic forces me to get back to the very very basics of language. In a way I have to forget what 4 years of honors English and 2 years as a lit major taught me. While it is irritating and tedious and I'm mostly doing it so that Noor doesn't freeze me with her ice powers again, there is something great about it too.
And with that, I'm back to work. Rima is just about to tell Yousef how many sisters she has, and I wouldn't want to miss that.
Top 5 Reasons Arabic is the perfect language for me to learn:
1) It is all phonetic. I'm a great writer and horrible speller, as any of my 1st-15th grade teacher's will tell you. Because I'm a strong audio learner I spell everything exactly as it sounds. Since Arabic managed to avoid the Great Vowel Shift in the Middle Ages, it's one ahead on phonetic spelling.
2) It writes right to left. Finally! A language made for left handed people!
3) Everyone sounds angry all the time. Since I actually am angry most of the time this is perfect.
4) There is no "to be verb". If you want to say "I am home" the literal translation is "I home". This avoids annoying philosophical rubbish about what it means to be human, a woman, an American. You just are. Period (ok that one was a little bit of a stretch. Get over it).
5) It looks and sounds really really cool.
All the best,
B
Jabal Amman, Jordan
Rainbow street
2:40pm
Greetings,
This Friday finds me very nearly fully recovered and back at the old Turtle Green cafe, drinking over-priced tea and abusing the free wifi. Since I was heartily embarrassed in Arabic class on Wednesday, I've devoted the entire day to learning Arabic (and blogging).
In class on Wednesday my professor- a 28 year old Jordanian woman who speaks three languages, has the intelligence level comparable to that of a brain surgeon, and has eyes and and a soul cold and hard enough to sink the Titanic- told me to read a short paragraph aloud. In Arabic. "I can't" I told her simply. "why not?" she asked indignantly. "I don't know all the letters." she gave me a look that withered part of my life force and asked someone else to read. Not Barbara's best academic moment (in my defense I WAS sick).
So here I am at the TGC forcing my brain to learn a language that is totally foreign to me. Learning a whole new alphabet makes me feel like I'm 5 again. I have it written on a card and am forcing myself to commit it to memory as I read- at a pace that would embarrass most mollusks- short passages about Rima and Yousef and where they work and where they live and what food they like, all from my Arabic level 1 text book. It's dreadful.
In a way though, it is a little bit thrilling. I've always been an avid reader, and for years I've wondered what it felt like the moment that the lines of print on a page turned into words that contained actual meaning. I learned to read English so long ago that I had no concept of the feeling at all, it was like trying to remember what my first breath felt like.
I love words. I love words and sounds and letters and the excitement that comes from learning to take a bunch of symbols and put them together in a way that no one ever has before and create something that is totally my own. Learning Arabic forces me to get back to the very very basics of language. In a way I have to forget what 4 years of honors English and 2 years as a lit major taught me. While it is irritating and tedious and I'm mostly doing it so that Noor doesn't freeze me with her ice powers again, there is something great about it too.
And with that, I'm back to work. Rima is just about to tell Yousef how many sisters she has, and I wouldn't want to miss that.
Top 5 Reasons Arabic is the perfect language for me to learn:
1) It is all phonetic. I'm a great writer and horrible speller, as any of my 1st-15th grade teacher's will tell you. Because I'm a strong audio learner I spell everything exactly as it sounds. Since Arabic managed to avoid the Great Vowel Shift in the Middle Ages, it's one ahead on phonetic spelling.
2) It writes right to left. Finally! A language made for left handed people!
3) Everyone sounds angry all the time. Since I actually am angry most of the time this is perfect.
4) There is no "to be verb". If you want to say "I am home" the literal translation is "I home". This avoids annoying philosophical rubbish about what it means to be human, a woman, an American. You just are. Period (ok that one was a little bit of a stretch. Get over it).
5) It looks and sounds really really cool.
All the best,
B
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