Language.
Language is hard, language is frustrating. Add a foreign language to your life and it becomes almost intolerable. When I was younger I studied Italian at school. I took almost nothing away from those 7 years of study except how to say my name and a few greetings. Then I progressed onto German for a year and a half at high school and I remember how to say excuse me (enschuldigung), only because it's a fun word to say.
And I mustn't forget my year of travel where I spent the most part of the year in spanish speaking countries sightseeing and participating in intensive spanish courses. I think I have down how to order two beers and say thank you. The only problem is I no longer drink.
Moving to Morocco I was determined, and still am, to learn the local dialect, darija. Many people ask me why I didn't choose to speak French and put forward a thousand valid reasons as to why French would be easier and more useful to learn. The honest truth is I don't want to.
When I first visited Morocco years ago, I was I will admit, armed with a french phrasebook. Out of the couple of hundred pages or so I was able to order a small sandwich with chips. By the end of a 5 week stay in Morocco I got pretty sick of sandwiches and chips. Embarassingly, I spoke even less darija.
Since moving to Morocco I have made a conscious effort to study darija and speak more when the opportunity arises. Now, I have many difficulties when it comes to speaking arabic but probably the most difficult part of learning this language is the pronunciation of certain sounds. The arabic alphabet has numerous tongue twisting and throat constricting sounds, and some of the sounds are pretty much identical. This is a language that is traditionally not written so numbers are used for certain sounds. For example 7 = ha, 5 = kh, 9 = ka, 3 = ain. Not to mention words, my goodness, words.
There are a number of occasions when I have been talking about the colour white yet I get a vacant look and realise that the person I am talking to thinks I am talking about the wind, the cold or eggs. Asking the bus if it is leaving at seven has the driver and his right hand man in hysterics as they think I am waiting for the morning bus 12 hours early. The difference between the word for morning and seven is almost non existent to my ear.
I study arabic twice a week now and clock up a total of three hours. My usteda (teacher) is great and she is very patient with the group I study with. She teaches english to public school students in the medina and tutors us in the evening. My usteda is very honest and upfront, she has told us to stay away from words, or more to the point sounds until we have mastered them in private. The reason behind this is that I may offend those I am talking to and completely humiliate myself. One example was trying to say that 'I teach.' Instead I said 'I bum.' Not cool.
There are some really fun things I have learned since studying darija, like when you have a cold you say "Drabni l'brd'. Which literally translates into 'I have been hit by the cold', 'Makajneesh n3ss', which means 'Sleep does not come to me', or if you are referring to someone as being stupid you call them a 'della7' which translates into the word for melon. Therefore, it can be used as an insult or at the fruit and veg stand.
Although learning a language is hard going it is one of my favourite things about living in Marrakech. Trying to converse in the safety of your own home during classes, and a shwiya b shwiya (little by little) approach on the streets suits me. Usteda has threatened that we will be taking or school to the streets, by the way of her setting mini assignments. I'm ready for it, bring it on.
I just have to remember not to call myself a bum whilst conversing with a stranger!
