Jamal Waheed

When I came out here, the intention was to learn Arabic, of course. It's relevant to what I do and useful generally to be able to communicate with other people in their first language. I was optimistic, I managed a pretty good grasp of French so far, I could do the same again, right? I don't take lessons because I have neither the cash flow nor the time but I do have people willing to teach me (thank you, you are all truly a blessing).

I have had three language partners: one didn't speak at all when we were together, one had one class with me (I paid her) and never spoke to me again. The third called me stupid. You could say we got off to a bad start.

I wasn't prepared for how difficult this would be. Or how hard it would be to convince myself to keep trying when everything felt so impossible to retain. I cannot remember anything in my life being this difficult to learn and simultaneously still wanting to do it day after day. This should tell you something about how beautiful the language is, and how rewarding working really hard at it can be.

Also everyone is very excited whenever I produce so much as a sentence. That I am not expected to be able to do that is heart-breaking from the point of view that English is so dominant, but it does make even basic encounters very fulfilling. Everyone is still so willing to help you and phrase things in a way you understand. Mostly, no one wants to leave you behind, if you're trying then you deserve to be helped to be part of what's going on.

Sometimes you do have to be laughed at first though. Time to resurrect this story again:

'Just when I thought I’d mastered the numbers in Arabic and used them to identify a singular camel on the side of the road, the whole car started laughing at me. The word for ‘one’ is wahad. Waheed means lonely. Close, but not my intention to comment on the emotional state of camels.'

- the lesson to be learnt here is that I tried and it went wrong but that’s all much better for being able to laugh about it. Also I will obviously never, ever, make that mistake again.

Camels are largely awful and resistant to my efforts to bond with them

They bring loneliness on themselves.

Arabic is actually neither a mental rest nor do I find learning languages especially easy - so it fulfils neither purpose and is an endless challenge. Understanding it is one thing, speaking however, completely floors me. This is something I can only compare to my absolute inability to remember dates vs. my actually pretty good maths skills.

Dear future employers, please remember that you don’t actually need to remember dates to be a historian anyway because Google exists and so does writing things down. My PowerPoints will be fab I promise.

The effect of these things is actually pretty similar. If you told me the French Revolution started in 1811 I could so easily be persuaded to believe you - I know it didn’t, I studied that period for over a year, I wrote my thesis on it. But I also know I can’t remember dates, so I presume I’m wrong. Speaking Arabic works the same way, I feel like that’s harder so I’m less sure of myself when I do it. I presumed my mistakes before I'd even made them so for a really long time I avoided speaking more than a couple of words.

Fun fact: If you search ‘French Revolution 2’ you actually do get results for the Second (1848) French Revolution.

A friend of mine heard someone say that Arabic was only difficult for the first ten years. We laughed but actually it feels like that would be pretty accurate. Things should be difficult though, your brain deserves and needs that exercise and it will need it for the rest of your life if it’s going to keep expanding at its current pace. Though when I forgot the word for ‘observing’ last week and could only describe it as ‘they’re being watched’ (we were talking about elections so that description helped approximately no one), I would say it felt less like my brain was expanding and more like a slow deterioration of all of my speaking faculties.

French Revolution 2: More Napoleon, Less Calendars.

True story, I never really got anyone to teach me the numbers above 10 until very recently so once someone told us the bill was 11 JD once and everyone looked at me to know and all I could give them was a ‘oh I have absolutely no idea either’. I know that everyone has blind spots but I didn’t realise I even had that huge gaping one until that moment. Luckily I have long since stopped being too proud to admit I don’t know something.

Here is my one tip, if you’re going to do something new, practice how to say ‘I have absolutely no idea’ with the confidence of someone who can learn, and the humility of someone who can be taught. It will save you a lot of time.

It’s just really fucking difficult. And sometimes it’s just less difficult than others.

There are obviously days where I find all of it nearly impossible and I wonder why I even tried to learn Arabic in the first place because it’s clearly fruitless. There are other days where I feel like I have a grasp of what’s going on and then a taxi driver will blindside me with a question that is not about the direction of the car or my reason for being there and I’m completely lost. They usually follow this with ‘how long have you been here?’ - the implication there is pretty obvious, ‘should you know better by now?’.

I mean yes, probably, but also things are hard and sometimes I am also trying to enjoy myself, I should know lots of things but here we are. Last time I checked you’re meant to enjoy learning, and embracing where you’re at is much nicer than stressing about where you might never be. I would be impressed if someone told me they knew a bit of Arabic, I should try and be equally impressed with myself for trying.

I have no top tips, everyone learns differently, no matter how annoying that is to here. I do know I learn best when I'm relaxed, that I pick up vocab faster than grammar rules. There is no rhyme or reason to the way I learn anything, my brain will take things in when it feels the time is right, it needs regular breaks. I like my language learning the way I write my papers - completely unstructured and without any sort of plan.

A friend once described this method as 'so unbelievably French' - I'll take it.

If you came here for an actual update on how my learning process is going - I know the alphabet, I can understand most of what's being said to me (and about me), I can respond to basic questions about myself and tell people if I want something. I can make jokes in the very rudimentary sense of using tone of voice, I can drop common turns of phrase. I am still in the phase of being so excited by having a full conversation with a cashier that I leave my change behind.

Just 9 more years to go. 

xx

In other news I can’t tell you why all the posts have a different font/size/spacing/text colour. I’ve tried changing it but everything looks different again when I go into edit so overall, I don’t know what’s going on.

I will make the effort to make everything at least readable, if not consistent.

Interestingly, that’s also the by-line on my email signature.

I'm on Twitter - @clairegillesp - and at the moment largely shit-talking Shakespearean women and not shit-talking actual real-life women. 
I'm also on Instagram - clairegillesp - where I may at some point post a picture of my new hair when I decide I don't hate it. 
At the moment I'm listening to Bruno Mars '24K Magic', Galantis 'Love On Me' and I've just re-discovered Will Young.