Everyone is crazy

I have officially had my first conversation in Arabic with a taxi driver. Granted, I’m sure I sounded like a 3 year old babbling words who doesn’t truly understand what he’s saying, but even so I was very proud of myself and excited. Perhaps one of the funniest moments was the following exchange (all in Arabic):

Taxi Driver almost hits a guy running across a busy street, then proceeds to almost slam into a car and says “Crazy Man!”

I am startled, yet ecstatic that I understood that haha. So I tell him, “Yes, crazy. I understand you.”

Surprised that I spoke to him in Arabic he laughs, and I proudly smile, then he says, “There are too many cars in this city.”

Nearing my destination another car cuts us off and nearly side swipes us, causing the driver to exasperatingly declare, “EVERY one is crazy today!”

To which I say, “We are not crazy.”

And we laugh.

So there you go. That was about the extent of my hold on Arabic right there in that one conversation haha. Overall, I’m very pleased. I’ve only had 15 hours of language learning at this point and most of it has been nouns and other vocabulary. I won’t really be touching grammar until after the first 100 hours or so.

That’s not to say that I won’t be trying to learn some of it myself. I’m fortunate to have a friend in the city who lived here for a couple of years, a few years ago. He has a firm grasp of the language already and has been helping clarify things for me that get befuddled during class. I can’t tell you how great it’s been to be able to discuss with a NATIVE English speaker some of the more perplexing intricacies of the language. As with most native speakers of any language, my instructor fails to mention a lot of stuff that I would consider valuable information; I think this is because he doesn’t realize that certain “obvious” linguistic aspects aren’t so obvious to someone just starting out. But, he also might be leaving it out simply because he thinks these things are unimportant to my early language development. Either way, my desire to grasp the language makes me want to understand every detail. That’s why it’s nice to a friend who knows what I’m talking about!

I can’t think of a good picture to include with this post. I promise to make the next entry picture intensive to make up for it. Thank you all who have written me encouraging words and comments on my blog entries. It’s great to hear from you! Don’t be shy, and I promise not to be shy to reply to your comments. See you soon.