Lessons By Mary: Baby Steps to Fluency

After almost 10 years in the Arab world I’m still learning the language.

When I walked into my Arabic lesson last week, Mary, my teacher and dear friend, cheerily asked me how I was doing. I said, "Zain, hamdulillah," which means, "Fine, thanks be to God." But I was lying. I'd just spent a full day at work and was sitting down at a desk for two hours of mind-bending grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. I knew it would be a long night.

The First Challenge, the script. It does not take long to get used to writing and reading right-to-left. (Though it still feels odd to open my book from what seems like the back.) Most of the letters have four different forms, depending on whether they stand alone or come at the beginning, middle, or end of a word. Yes, you heard that correctly. The letters don’t look quite the same, depending on where they occur in the word. 

Oh, and another thing? Vowels aren’t so much included in the word. They get added afterwards, above or below, if you want to. There are 14 extra-alphabetical symbols that I’m supposed to remember on top of the 28 consonants. But ipeople don't include most vowels when writing. Maktab, or "office," is just written mktb.  Whn y knw th lngg wll ths s nt tht hrd. But when you're struggling with comprehension to begin with, it's pretty formidable.

Then there is the sounds these letters represent. Arabic has one "h" like ours, and another that has been described as the sound you would make trying to blow out a candle with air from your throat. That's not to be confused with another sound, the fricative kh familiar to German-speakers as the sound in "Bach." There's also 'ayn, a "voiced throat fricative," which is like the first sound in the hip-hop "a'ight." Unwritten inRoman-alphabet transliterations, it's actually a consonant that begins many common words and names, including "Arab," "Iraq," and "Arafat."

A few weeks ago, I started the 30 Day Shred with Jillian Michaels.  She said that it was important to do different exercise routines during each workout to “confuse the body,” because then your muscles have to work harder and you see better results.  After a few days, I wasn’t magically thinner or stronger (stinkin!) but my aches and pains showed me that new muscles were emerging.

It occurs to me, as I make this analogy, that my brain isn’t as fit as my body. Who knew it was possible to have swags of back fat and poochy love handles on one’s brain? It’s a medical miracle. Someone call Dr. Oz.

My brain may not know it yet, but it’s been put on a new fitness regimen that goes from right to left. I’m going to confuse that gray matter muscle and make my brain all perky and renewed, the brain equivalent of a midwestern gymnast. Who knows. Maybe the process will, inshallah, ward off Alzheimer’s: being temporarily confused as away to ward off further, more permanent confusion.