French class is moving forward at a reasonable pace. I am not looking forward to the summer break because I really enjoy going to class. I am getting even more out of it now that it is usually me, a westerner named Clark, and Mme Hela. Clark and I are about the same age and have no problem competing with each other to answer questions or waiting quietly while the other one struggles through a reading.
Clark has mentioned his family so I asked him last week why his wife wasn't taking French. She IS French, he said. She doesn't want to teach him so she sent him off to the classes. A very wise woman, I told him.
Oddly, quite a few Saudis ask me when I will start to learn Arabic. This is somewhat at odds with what I read before coming out here. Those commentators suggested that Saudis don't care much for Westerners who learn Arabic because they like to maintain a cultural distance.
Even though the official language of Aramco is English, I am surrounded by written and spoken Arabic. As in any foreign country, the observant visitor quickly pick up the social niceties: yes, no, thank you, greetings, basic verbs (I have/don't have, want/don't want, know/don't know, etc.).
On Wednesday afternoon, I spoke my first word of Arabic to a group of young Saudi geologists I am teaching. We had spent all week together, the first week of a two-week course that I designed and am delivering for the first time. The material has proven to be challenging and the exercises seem to be engaging them.
Wednesday finally rolled around and I was wrapping up the day. I came to the end of what I needed to say, looked around the room, raised my hands, and said "Halas!"
By context I had seen that this word can mean "enough, stop, that's it"--like my favorite phrase for Mimi, "Ca suffit!"
Anyway, after I said "Halas" they all burst out laughing. I somewhat anxiously asked them, did I use it right? Oh yes, yes you did, they all said. They seemed enormously pleased with my puny little effort. It was the right word at the right time.
3 comments:
Ha ha ha. You're being so multilingual.
Ca suffit = that's enough
C'est tout = that's it or this is it
.... juste une petite difference, c'est tout ;-)
I think you should try Arabic, nothing like writing right to left
I use "C'est tout!" as the dogs' new command to end a play or training session. I hold both hands up, empty, and say "C'est tout!" They already had a "that's all" command so this was an easy transition.
Yes, I do appreciate the difference! We learned yet a third variation last week in class: "C'est ca!"--meaning "that is it!" or "that's the thing!".
Mimi likes to sproing--repeatedly and immediately next to me--when I am preparing their meals. She jumps so high that she bumps my elbow with her head. That's when she gets a glare and a muttered "Ca suffit, Mimi!".
I think I will leave written arabic for now. But I can read numbers--for some weird reason they write those from left to right.
Ha ha ha bilingual dogs!!! Well at least french is better than german.
I would start adding arabic to their vocabulary too.
Some words are just perfect, like Halas! That sounds just what it means.
Arabic really intrigued me and their grammatical rules are quite unique.
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