After he tried his best to help me, he finally suggested I go down to the airline's office and "practice my Arabic" while trying to fix the problem and get my ticket. I started laughing.
"Chef?! My Arabic consists of being able to read and write the alphabet, count to 1000, and say approximately 15 verbs in the simple present tense. There is absolutely no way that I could explain this situation and resolve it in my Arabic."
He responds in surprise, "But I thought you were doing so well! You told me everyone keeps calling you smart, and that you think you're ahead of where you ought to be for one month. I mean, after a month of French, you were having conversations!"
I started laughing. I mean, really laughing. Arabic is not French. Not even close. Yes, I am learning quickly and everyone thinks I'm doing really well. But that means that where it takes some people 2 months to learn the alphabet, I had it down in two weeks. So for the first two weeks of class (and remember, I've only had four), all I did was learn how to read and write the alphabet.
So it was a small victory this week when I understood someone say "Rabbits eat carrots." And when I speak, it takes me a good 30 seconds to get out a sentence that consists of subject, verb, object. If it's in the negative, add another 15 seconds. I seriously talk SLOW, and that's with the 15 verbs I know.
Well, the other night, I repeated this whole conversation (with Chef) to Roommate. Roommate, who's English is pretty stinking awesome, is one of the people who administer tests in Arabic to people learning it to determine what level they're at. But I told her when I found that out that she wouldn't be administering the test to me...I want to keep our relationship on the roommate level and not on Teacher/Student/Working/Stressful level for either one of us.
When I told her the conversation, she grinned and said, "Your Arabic IS really good for one month. And we really should speak more Arabic with one another. a;aldksfj;aodifp?"
"What?!"
"a;dkfj;aoisdfpoin?"
I explained that I didn't understand. She repeated it slower. Still nothing. She repeated it super slow, and then said in English, "You know this. a;ldkfoa;idsfionp?"
I shook my head, nope.
"What's your name?"
"What?! You were asking me what's my name?!" I ran out of the room completely embarrassed and ready to go to sleep. She followed after me trying to encouraging me that it was late and we shouldn't speak Arabic at midnight and that I shouldn't be discouraged by this and shovel shovel shovel. I think she understood why I don't think it'd be a good idea for her to administer my tests...
I told Teacher the whole story the next day and she gave me this shame shame look like, "You know that question." So we've spent the last two days reviewing common questions that people ask me so that I can be used to hearing them and responding correctly. Somewhere in that question process, it came out that I like to make bread. "What kind of bread?"
I have no idea why, but I used the English word, zucchini, instead of the French word, courgette, or even better, the Arabic word, 'qra anther.'
Well, as soon as I'd said 'zucchini,' Teacher starts laughing hard. I asked if she was laughing at the word, 'zucchini,' and she doubled over and howled in laughter to stop saying that word.
Apparently 'zuc' is the word for the female body part and 'zuccine' is the plural form of it. Well...that's one embarrassing way to learn body parts and bad words.
Yeah. Language is going ggggggrrrrrrrrrreat.
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