It’s been a while since I posted about language learning! Because I love languages and learning and Kenya, and because learning to speak Swahili is on my 30 before 30 list, here I am sitting down with a glass of white wine and my little green notebook and an awesome online Swahili curriculum my husband shared with me. It was created by a friend of his as part of a pre-departure orientation for a nonprofit organization in Tanzania, but it is very generously available to anyone interested. The curriculum includes both written and audio explanations of Swahili grammar, along with listening comprehension exercises and worksheets. I posted a while ago about some helpful youtube channels for learning Swahili, but this resource is more comprehensive. Check it out, my fellow language nerds!
Tag: language learning
Everything you ever need to know you can learn from youtube
I know at least a few of you who read this blog love languages and are always up for learning a little bit of every language out there. So I thought I’d share some free resources I’ve found for learning Swahili.
I started by walking over to my local public library to see what they had in the foreign languages section. But this was disappointing. Shelves and shelves of resources for learning European languages and not much more than a couple of dictionaries and small travelers’ phrase books for Swahili.
I probably could find something good on Amazon, but I’m cheap. Thankfully, there’s a youtube video out there for everything you might ever need to do ever, and speaking Swahili is no exception. Youtube has some surprisingly helpful resources for learning Swahili. All for the attractive price of free.99!
Here are the most helpful channels I’ve found so far:
To get started, a channel called “Learn Swahili with SwahiliPod101.com” has a series called “Swahili in Three Minutes” that goes over the very basics- greetings, introducing yourself, numbers, asking and answering very simple questions, etc. The same channel also has a series of videos called “Swahili Listening Practice” at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels.
For grammar, the channel “Five College LangMedia” has a series of videos on Swahili grammar, covering verb conjugations and tenses, noun classes, everything. There are about 50 videos, mostly between 5 and 15 minutes long, and they are very clear and easy to follow. I’ll be slowly working through these for a while!
I learn languages best when I have both visual and auditory input, and the above videos have both. And, of course, when I have a chance to practice and produce the language myself. My hubby covers that last part. I try out everything I learn on him and he’s a great sport about it! So find a Swahili-speaking friend! Or just talk to yourself and write in a journal- that works too. You just have to take what you’ve learned and try it out.
Over-Easy Arabic
By this time, I have a favorite bakery, a favorite butcher shop, a favorite vegetable souk, a favorite hanoot, and a favorite place to get rghayef with amlou on a Saturday morning. Two weeks ago, I found my favorite egg store.
You can find eggs in some hanoots, souks, and the mini supermarket. But this is a shop that sells eggs, eggs, and only eggs. A garage door opens into a small room full of brown eggs in open gray cartons on tables, sorted by size- small, medium, large. I never knew chicken eggs came in different sizes, but they definitely do.
I had been traveling a lot and I hadn’t been there in two weeks, so I didn’t think the shop owner would remember me. But he answered my Darija request for “six of these, please” with “Speak English, remember? You’re my English teacher and I’m your Arabic teacher.” Sure enough, I had told him exactly that in my broken Arabic two weeks ago when I’d discovered the egg store. “I’ll be your English teacher and you’ll be my Arabic teacher, ok?”
“Alright,” I say in English, “What’s the Arabic word for egg?”
“Bayda.”
“Six eggs, please.”
He wraps the eggs in newspaper and puts them in a plastic bag. He waves goodbye. “After!”
“See you later!”
“See you later.”
“Oh, I thought you were ________”
I approach the crowd of grand taxis parked outside the bus station, and say to the man with the small notebook and pencil- in Darija, exactly the way I’ve heard Moroccans say it- “Tangier, one seat,” pronouncing Tangier the Arabic way. The man points toward a grand taxi. I hand him thirty dirhams. He asks me something in Darija, something I don’t understand. I look at him quizzically.
He switches to French. “Oh, I am so sorry. I didn’t know you were French. I thought you were Moroccan.”
I’m not French, but I don’t bother telling him I’m not. You find a language in which you can both communicate adequately and you go with it. That’s how it works here.
I’m not often mistaken for a Moroccan woman. I assume it was knowing the grand taxi system that made him think I was. People generally assume I’m Spanish or French.
*
I’m buying vegetables in the souk. “Are you Spanish?” asks the man selling me half a kilo of tomatoes.
“No.”
“French?”
“No, I’m American.”
“New York!”
“No…”
“California?”
“Boston.”
“Boston!”
*
“Buongiorno!” shouts a random man on the street. Well, that’s a new one. The funny thing is, he’s closer than anyone else.
*
Two friends and I hail a taxi in the touristy marina district of Agadir. We tell him our destination through the front passenger window. “Fifty dirhams,” he says, in French.
“No,” we say, in Darija. “The meter, please.”
“No,” he says. “Fifty dirhams.”
“It’s not far from here. It’s close. Fifty dirhams is very expensive. We’re not tourists. We know.”
He has also switched to Darija. “It’s night. The rate is double at night.”
“Double? No. Not double. More expensive, but not double. Twenty dirhams.”
“Okay, okay. Thirty dirhams.”
“Twenty-five.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll use the meter and you’ll see it’s not less than thirty dirhams.”
We get in the car. He turns on the meter.
We chat on the ride home, telling him we live in Morocco, we’re teachers, we’re visiting a friend, asking him what he thinks of Agadir. His tone has completely changed. We’re chatting like old friends. He gives us his number in case we ever need a taxi and can’t find one.
When we reach our destination, the meter reads twenty-nine dirhams. I point to the meter. “Look. Does it say fifty? Does it?” I can’t resist.
He laughs. “I thought you were tourists.”
“Yeah, we know.”
“Bravo, America!”
My city is small, and people are starting to recognize me and realize that I live here. I’m that American girl. I’m not a tourist. I’m here to stay. And I now have a growing collection of unofficial Darija tutors holding me accountable for my progress, in the form of Maroc Telecom employees and vegetable vendors.
I walked into Maroc Telecom to pay my first internet bill. I didn’t think the man behind the counter recognized me, but he did. (Not the Bob Marley fan who drilled a hole through my wall. A different Maroc Telecom man.) I handled the whole transaction in French, because when it comes to money I don’t want to take any chances. And because, let’s be real, French is easy and I’m lazy.
“Elizabeth,” he said, giving me my change, and using my middle name as- for some reason- people here often do. Maybe because my first name means “me” in Arabic and that’s confusing. “How’s your Arabic? Are you learning Arabic? Are you learning the Moroccan language?”
It may have just been small talk, but I interpreted that as a “Use Arabic next month, when I see you again.” Homework assignment duly accepted.
I was buying beets in the vegetable market a couple days later. “Cinco dirham,” said the young man behind the counter.
The guy at the next vegetable stand shouted over, “She speaks Arabic!” And the conversation switched to Darija.
“You speak Arabic?”
Me (in Arabic): “No, I don’t speak any Arabic at all. At all.”
They thought this was hilarious.
“Yes, you do! Are you Spanish?”
“No, I’m American.”
“American?!?” (There are not many Americans here.) “Bravo, America!”
“But I live here now.”
“You’re studying here?”
“Yes, I’m studying Arabic and Spanish. And I’m teaching English.”
“Bravo, America!”
Today was a good day!
I went to my university’s copy center today and walked out later with exactly what I wanted, after communicating only in Darija! This was a big Morocco step for me.
The conversation went like this. (At least, this is what I think I was saying. I may have actually been saying something entirely different.)
“Hello! I’m a new English teacher here…”
“Hello, [my name]!” Whoah, she remembers me! I guess I am the only American around here, after all. I’m a zoo animal.
I have four… four…” Quick, how do you say files??? Wait, nevermind, it’s ok, she understands me.
“Something something something something?”
“Fifty of everything, please.”
“Something something fifty something something?”
“Yes. I don’t know how many students I have… [I was SO proud of that sentence, just sayin’] … but fifty, please.” Most likely I will have closer to a hundred per class, but from what I’ve heard, many of them will not be there on day one.
“Something something you speak Arabic something something?”
“No…”
“Yes, you do, a little!”
“Yes, I’m learning Darija! I speak English and French, but I live here now.”
“Something something something twelve pages something something fifty something something wait here.”
“Yes, okay, thanks.”
And it worked.
On top of all this, I got my schedule today. A real life actual schedule, with classroom numbers and everything, formatted specifically for me, and in English. Wahoo!
Lost in Translation
There’s this Darija phrase that I thought was just another way of saying “hello.” I just found out a few days ago that it actually means “good morning.” For the past three weeks, I have been cheerfully telling my neighbors and the local hanoot (shop) owners “good morning!” at 8 or 9 pm, and none of them have ever corrected me!
When I lived in France, most of my conversations happened in my second language (French) and the other person’s first language. When I was working with Spanish-speaking newcomer students in the U.S., most conversations happened in my first language (English) and the others’ second language. Here in Morocco, I often have to rely on my second language and the other person’s second language. At my university the other day, my department head introduced me to the Dean. His English wasn’t great, my Arabic was barely there, so we quickly switched to French. We understood each other perfectly.
But sometimes, when you’re both speaking your second or third languages, communication errors happen. The other day, I went to a café and asked for a coffee and a “pain au chocolat.” Now, in France at least, “pain au chocolat” refers to a chocolate croissant, but literally it means “bread with chocolate.” The waiter brought me exactly that. Four slices of bread covered in generous amounts of nutella. I wasn’t gonna complain, though. It was delish.
“Soy americana, de Boston”
I live one block from a Spanish language institute, and today, I signed up for a Spanish class and excitedly showed up for the first class session. There were twelve students in the class: eleven Moroccans and one random American. So when the teacher went over introductions and asked us, “De dónde eres?” it went something like this:
Soy marroquí, de Tetuán. Soy marroquí, de Tetuán. Soy marroquí, de Tetuán. Soy marroquí, de Tetuán. Soy marroquí, de Tetuán. Soy marroqui, de Tetuán. Soy marroquí, de Tetuán. Soy marroquí, de Tetuán…..
Soy americana, de Boston.
I was impressed by the teacher’s ability to teach a clear, effective lesson entirely in Spanish, to students who spoke very little Spanish. The way she used visuals, acted out words, and had us help each other worked perfectly, and I know all that is harder than it looks.
I couldn’t help thinking of my old job in the States, teaching classes of English Language Learners, usually all Spanish-speaking except for one or two who spoke Haitian creole or Pashtu or some other language. I always felt bad for that student who was the odd one out. Some of the Spanish-speaking students were kind and welcoming to the non-Spanish speakers, but some excluded them.
But one of the girls sitting next to me spoke a little bit of English, and she helped translate a few Spanish words for me when I wasn’t sure what they meant. I told her I was trying to learn Darija. She said, “Oh, I’ll teach you Darija! And you can help me practice my English.”
As soon as class was over, three girls approached me to introduce themselves and chat. I asked them how they’d learned English and they said, “in high school,” and seemed surprised that I would ask. I explained that we Americans are lazy and think we don’t need to learn other languages because the whole world speaks English, so I am continually impressed by the Moroccans I meet. They all speak at least three or four languages! It’s awesome.
My new Moroccan friends walked me to my door, asking about my program and my job here and what I think of Tétouan, and told me I was welcome in Morocco. I thanked them for being so sweet. They laughed. “We love foreigners!”
The Great Wifi Quest of 2014
My roommate burst out laughing. Someone had posted on Facebook, “Before you marry anyone, watch them use a slow internet connection and see how they deal with it.” Too real. Way too real. For the past three weeks, my internet connection has come from this tiny device called a dongle. It’s better than nothing, and it works well enough when it decides to. But more often than not, it is slow enough to test the patience of a turtle, if it even works at all.
I patiently put up with the dongle for three weeks. But this is 2014, and I am not a prisoner of war. So I set off in search of a better solution: wifi, or as they call it here, “wee-fee.”
At the “Centre,” there was one spot on the property with wifi, a small square of patio just outside one window. Any time we were not in Darija class, we could all be found there- the ten Americans, huddled together next to what we came to call “le wee-fee wall.” I’m sure the guards thought we were nuts.
To get a wifi router in Morocco, you need either a carte de séjour (green card) or a copy of your lease. I found a French-speaking employee at the nearest Maroc Telecom store, signed a twelve-month contract, and walked home with an ADSL router and modem and no idea how to set it up. But it couldn’t be that hard… right?
Wrong. My apartment has no phone jack.
So it was back to Maroc Telecom the next day. I spoke to the same employee in French, but he did not seem concerned. No worries. They’d send a technician over to my apartment later that day to set everything up.
My phone rang a few hours later. A man’s voice speaking Arabic.
“Quién es?” I asked.
Someone from Maroc Telecom to set up my router. Which floor was I on?
“El piso… cinco? Habla francés o inglés?”
No, he said, he only spoke Spanish and Arabic.
Okey-dokey. This is gonna be interesting.
Thankfully, Moroccans are incredibly kind and understanding when it comes to language barriers. I’ve never had a Moroccan respond rudely to my pitiful attempts at speaking Darija and Spanish. People always patiently try to understand me, they don’t laugh at me when I mix multiple languages in the same sentence, which I do on a regular basis, and they are always happy to teach me a new Darija word or two.
I had looked up the Spanish word for phone jack and I told the Maroc Telecom guys that there wasn’t one. The next thing I knew, they were up on the roof with wires and cables. One of them came back into the apartment, pointed at the wall and said what sounded to me like, “Something something something aqui?”
“Si,” I said. I figured they knew what they were doing.
He produced the biggest drill I’d ever seen and immediately began drilling a hole through my wall. Oh no no no, don’t let the neighbors tell my landlord about this!
Then he was passing a cable through the hole in the wall from the roof.
“Are you from London?” he asked me in Spanish.
“No, I’m from America.”
“Oh. Me gustan las canciones de Bob Marley. Rasta Man! …Do you want to learn Arabic?”
“Si, quiero aprender arabe.”
“Arabic is easy.”
“No, it’s difficult. It’s very different from English.”
“I want to learn to read English, Elizabeth Taylor.”
“Elizabeth Taylor?”
He pointed to my name on the Maroc Telecom contract. “Your second name is Elizabeth. So I’m calling you Elizabeth Taylor.”
“Oh, ok.”
I have wifi at last. Wonderful, glorious, beautiful wifi. Skype calls that actually work. Windows that open in a second or two instead of giving me the pinwheel of death. “Only know you love it when you let it go!”
Teaching - Learning - Living 