Arabic with Adam

I have only been in Abu Dhabi for 3 days, and I am - there is no room for debate here, the best Arabic speaker in this town.  Locals included.  I’ve added at least 3 words to my lexicon today, bringing the grand total of words I can say to 3. 

Since I’ve so easily adopted these words, I can only assume that my propensity for language will allow me to just absorb the language without having to open a single Arabic/English Dictionary. 

I keep viewing, in my mind, this dreamy music montage that documents my triumphant climb from illiteracy to fluency. 

Shot one. You see me talking at a group of Arab men in head wraps and flowing white robes.  They all squint at me and turn their heads to listen. But what's this?  They furrow their brows and shake their heads no.  I throw up my hands in disgust because they cannot understand me, but I quickly recover from my failure, and a close up on my face shows my grit and determination. 

Shot two.  As the music begins to swell, you see me watching Arabs speak to one another and to me, and their lips begin to move in slow motion.  This is where I, (the viewer) understand that director (me) is making it clear to the audience that the star of this montage (also me) is beginning to identify individual words in the indigenous tongue.  Another close up on my face, and we can see that I’m bound and determined, as they say.

Shot three.  The camera cuts to a close up of my mouth moving very slowly, mimicking the intricate movements of the Arab mouths – cut to a dark skinned Arab smiling and nodding to indicate that, yes, he understands... but what’s this?  Now he is shrugging his shoulders with his palms up in the air to indicate that he didn’t get that last part.  Another close up on my face reassures us that the star of our montage is not ready to give up.

Shot four.  In this final scene, just as the tympanis in the orchestra begin to roll loudly and the strings of the violins inflate to climatic proportions, we see me, two years later, sitting leisurely at a table with 3 other Arab men, who smile and throw their heads back to laugh at my high-browed jokes in pristine, flowery Arabic.  A final close up on my face shows the heroic qualities of my face and it is clear that I am self assured in my fluency. CUT!

I think this all springs from too many viewings of Dances with Wolves, as a child.  In the film, starring Kevin Costner, Costner is a Union Soldier who finds himself stranded with a tribe of Native Americans just after the Civil War.  He learns one word “Tatonka,” which means buffalo, and within two minutes of movie time, he is making heady sexual puns with the natives in their indigenous tongue as they all sit around a crackling campfire smoking a peace pipe. Is that so hard to believe?!

The method I’ve devised to learn Arabic, so far, is twofold...not to mention brilliant.  First, I am only going to watch Arabic TV.  I started this foolproof language learning technique, or so I thought, on my first day here. It was a day or so later that I realized, with a slightly deflated sense of determination, that I was tuned in to Telemundo. 

After my channel botch, I got my tube locked into a genuinely Arabic channel, and I’m on my way.  Even when I’m not watching TV, I’m leaving it tuned in to Arab channels.  Right now, in my hotel room, there is a fellow on TV either speaking perfect Arabic or clearing his throat of phlegm (the two are indistinguishable).  I’m soaking up Arabic subliminally, without trying.  Osmosis.  This technique is analogous to my indisputable study habit of sleeping with my face nestled in the spine of an open textbook and soaking up the information therein. 

My biggest success so far is learning to say the name of our hotel, Bab Al Bahr.  I’ve impresse my less fluent colleagues here at the hotel by pronouncing, with native accuracy if I don’t say so myself, Bab Al Bahr.  I got in a taxi last night, and said to my driver, “Bab Al Bahr!”  He smiled widely at me.  What a beautiful dialect!  What enunciation! He must have thought.  The others riding in the taxi began to whisper and nod approval in the back.  Footnote:  I didn’t witness any of this happening, but I know it did. 

While the word looks simple enough to pronounce, it is difficult even with my legendary inclination for all things language.  The trick is to give your tongue a break.  As English speakers, our tongues have anatomical ADD.  Say the word “Testimony.”  Do it. Say it out loud.  I bet your tongue bounced around in your mouth like a shiny pinball leaping from its spring-loaded launching pad to rocket back and forth between two rubber-banded cones. 

TES - (your tongue hits the roof of your mouth a few centimeters behind your teeth, before scooping down to your mouth’s trenches only to fire back up and smack the back of your two front teeth).  DING DING DING.  And we still have TIMONY to go.  Already your tongue has done more work than an Arab speaker’s does in a year.

To speak Arabic, and you’re hearing from an expert here (let’s not forget about my legendary success directing the cab driver to our hotel), one must let the tongue drape over the back molars.  And leave it there.  Arabs do not use their tongue to speak.  If your tongue moves, you’re cooked.

The first time an Arab French kisses, I assume it is like the first time a morbidly obese man decides to finally expunge himself from his couch, put those sweat pants to good use, and go for a run after 10 years of sedentary gluttony spent watching reruns and reality shows. By the time his tongue escapes his mouth and makes contact with hers, eager for that ground breaking mouth dance, it is thoroughly spent, dripping with sweat, and ready to lug itself back to its cave to watch the world from the safety of its couch on the molars.

Try saying Bab Al Bahr. Seriously try it!  Did your tongue move?  Bad tongue.  Try it again and this time, order that overzealous tongue of yours to sit quietly in time out in the back of your mouth.  That’s better.  This first session of Arabic with Adam is free.  To order your complete series of online Arabic lessons…wait a few years.