Ok, so there was no Part I, but I felt the title fit.
Right. So today I went back to Arabic after a three week break. First week and second week of the break, no class. Third week, there was class, but I had finals and so I missed out on a two-hour session.
I thought this missing class would cause a few problems. But I had underestimated the imporatance of two hours in that little blue classroom: today, I was, without a doubt, the stupid girl.
Not that I think I am stupid. But I was so far behind everybody that I could hardly keep up. All I missed was two hours! But it was like two weeks. That's how kick-ass my teacher is.
Let me just point something out to everybody. You know how if you are in beginning Spanish, or German, or Italian, or whatever, and you miss the day that everybody learns how to say "I think, you think, he thinks...", well, you can usually sort of figure it out anyway? You can use context and often connections to words you know in other languages in your own (like "penser" and "pensar" in French and Spanish respectively). That can be a handy thing, and even if you have to ask for a little bit of help, the rest sort of makes sense eventually.
But really, that doesn't happen in Arabic.
The words are just too damn foreign, and seem to have no phonetic relation to words I know in any of the romance languages or in English. None at all. It's really like learning a language entirely from scratch. Entirely.
So when we were doing a "review" of the 4,268 new things everyone seemed to learn last week, I just kept having to ask, "I'm sorry...um...takkatut...what does that word mean?"
And nevermind the fact that I had prepared THE WRONG FUCKING lesson. Well, that's not entirely untrue. I had prepared the right lesson, not knowing that there was yet another lesson to prepare on top of it. Keep in mind that each lesson takes about seven intense hours of work, and I spent all of my Friday night learning Arabic verbs. Not that I minded, it was fun. I just wish I had known that I still had more to prepare.
So let me let everybody who has never studied Arabic in on a little secret so that they can better understand the horror that was my experience in class today: text in Arabic isn't written using vowels. Apparently, this is not a problem because there are patterns to the language that make figuring out the vowels very obvious. Of course, those patterns have yet to reveal themselves to me. Regardless, our textbook has what are called "vocalised texts" in the back of the book with the vowels written in, but we're supposed to refer to them as little as possible.
So there I was, with an entirely new text in front of me for the first time, in an alphabet I still struggle with, and without the help of vowels. These are all words I have never seen before. And I was just supposed to just figure it out. All the texts are all dialogues. So here's what it said:
Jml: Hy Nfs, whr r y ff t?
Nfs: Jml! Hll. M gng t schl.
Jml: Wht d y d t schl?
Nfs: Stdy frnch.
Jml: S Frnch sy?
Nfs. Lrd n! It's vry dffclt. Stdy nd stdy bt nvr lrn mch. Its hplss. R y gng t schl t?
Jml. Lrd n! m tkng th bs t smr's hs. W r gng t th mvs.
Ok, so you can probably figure out some of it. But imagine it written in that beautiful Arabic calligraphy. And imagine that you are only somewhat familar with a few of the key words. And that everyone is waiting for you to read. Needless to say, it was a true disaster.
My teacher is the best though. He is very encouraging and relentless in his desire for us to learn. He agreed to continue on with us next year, keeping the same schedule and just moving along in the textbook. My classmates are all very motivated and kind, and we encourage one another in ways that I have never seen adults interact in the "professional" world. It's a great experience. So despite today's minor setbacks, I am still determined to continue.
I'm just going to study my ASS off for the next class.