Arabic Unit 1 Day 1

In Kindergarden, way back in the day (1978), I was invited to an experimental program to introduce foreign language at an early age.  The language was Spanish, and though there were many age-appropriate activities, I don't think I retained a lick of the brief introduction.

In 7th grade, the age of "Back to the Future" and "Miami Vice", I had the opportunity to take three languages over the course of 18 weeks: German, French, and Spanish.  Then, choosing one, I would continue for another year and a half before High School.  My dad strongly encouraged me to take Spanish--but in my mind, there were two things wrong with that: one, as i argued with my dad, "When am I ever going to use Spanish?" (-- allow the irony of that to settle in for a minute...vision, as for any middle school student, was not yet my strong suit).  And, two, the teacher was awful; seriously, in 6 weeks, I barely learned the numbers and couldn't say the alphabet.  To this day, I can only count to 10, and wouldn't know how to begin the alphabet--but I can tell you countless stories about her mother in Chicago. :(

On the other hand, the German teacher was effective, but boring.  I only had 6 weeks in the 7th grade, ages ago, but last fall in Berlin, I could remember and apply some of the pronunciation.  But, I didn't choose German--I should have, but I didn't.

Yes, I chose the dying language of French (apologies to the Parisians and those in Quebec).  Why?  One, because the French teacher was fun and oddly cool for someone so old.  And two, I had dreams of going to Paris and seeing Europe.  And three, perhaps the greatest reason for a middle school student, all the cool kids were going to take French.  I continued in French, even hosting a French foreign exchange student for one summer, until my junior year of high school--that's when my multiple school transitions from Indiana to Alabama to Louisiana, and lack of application caught up with me as I was simply too far behind my 4th High School's French class to catch up.

Since then, learning to effectively and concisely communicate in English has been my focus as i prepared for and served in Ministry. (Note, I really didn't have to take a language in college because I went the Biblical Greek route, in which the spoken language was not the focus).

Until today, in Cairo--Welcome to learning Arabic.

Though we have been very slowly picking up words and phrases in our nearly 2 months in Cairo, we are now applying ourselves to language classes where we are simultaneously attempting to learn how to converse, write, and hopefully read Arabic.  

Honestly, we really covered a lot for a first day--and without a lot of practice, I'm likely to forget a lot!  I had quite a slow start as we quickly transitioned from a brief English greeting to greetings in Arabic with repetitions.  One of the challenges for me is that I am a visual learner--I learn best when I can see things in relation to each other and begin attributing abstract concepts to visual representations.  And, at this point, all of Arabic is abstract--the letters, the sounds and the connection between them are all unknown variables to me.

Fortunately, we have a really good teacher--she used a lot of hand gesturing to help us catch the differences in accents visually as well as orally; she used the marker board and various colored markers to demonstrate different words and accents; she gave us flash cards to write and use as we practiced with each other; and she was light-hearted and fun rather than harsh in her correction.

And like the benefit we had in sharing a major in college, Keli and I have a built in study partner 7 days a week.  We also have the benefit of applying the language in a living laboratory, and have the added benefit of many patient and encouraging native speakers ready to help us as we stumble through.  So when the locals laugh at us, we can go to someone from the CCF and find out what we said wrong.

So, continue to pray for us to gain a gift in this new tongue--and for patience, encouragement, and diligence along the way.  Thanks!