Saturday

Trip to Jordan


It's been a while since I've posted and the reason for that is that I've been vacationing in Jordan for a month and a half and the internet at the hotel was slower than dial-up. I saw a lot of the tourist stuff. I went to Petra البتراء, Jerash جرش, Um Qais ام قيس, Aqaba العقبة, and The Dead Sea البحر الميت. All of them were amazing, but what was even better than the sightseeing was the chance to practice Arabic. Everyone is really happy to speak with you, but sometimes you run into the problem of them wanting to speak English and you wanting to speak Arabic since most people have at least basic English. There were positives and negatives to the trip as far as my language learning goes. Something positive was that I was mistaken for being Lebanese almost every time I entered a taxi and any time I started a conversation. I imagine that is due to all the LBC I watch. If the other person started the conversation it would usually be in English because until I start talking I don't look like someone who speaks Arabic. On the flight home the Jordanian man next to me who I was speaking Arabic with asked me if I was from the West Bank or Jordan because he couldn't tell. It makes all the hard work you put into learning a language worth it when someone mistakes you for being a native speaker even when you don't look like you're "from around these parts". I mean I don't exactly look Arab. I'm pretty much the most pasty white person you'll ever meet (Irish and German decent) and I have a lot of freckles.

The negative part of the trip is that now I realize that I still have a lot of studying to do before I can understand everything being said. The Jordanian dialect is like a mix of Iraqi, Palestinian, and Bedouin. They use بدي (I want) but most people pronounce the ق as a 'g'. There were some people I could understand easily and others with whom I was totally lost. Most of the times I was lost were when I was talking with less educated people, and I suppose it's this way wherever you go. When you learn a language your teachers are most likely very educated people as are all the news anchors and media personalities you listen to. Even in soap operas that are in dialect the speech is usually very proper and without too much slang so that Arabic speakers from other areas can watch and understand. The language you learn is, more often than not, the language spoken by people who have college degrees. This is good in a way since you are learning the "proper" way to speak the language, but bad in that you're not getting exposure to less educated ways of speaking. Even when teachers speak in their dialect I find that it's an educated form of the dialect and very different than what is spoken by the poor and uneducated. I'm not really sure how to get exposure to this kind of language aside from living in a few Arabic countries for a while since you can't really find the slang of the streets on TV or online.

All in all I am very pleased with my time in Jordan. It's a great country and even though it is in smack dab in the center of the Middle East and is surrounded by countries plagued by violence it has an extremely low crime rate and the government takes preventing terrorism very seriously. When we went to eat in a 5 star hotel the taxi dropping us off was wiped with a cloth on the steering wheel and the dashboard. We asked the taxi driver why they did that and he told us that it was to test for traces of explosives. Jordan realizes that terrorism is bad for tourism.

11 comments:

Cat said...

Sounds amazing, I'm jealous! I would love to spend some time in Jordan.

makkay said...

افتقدتنا تدويناتك الرائعة

أتمنى أن تعود للتدوين كما عهدناك في السابق

بالمناسبة .. هل جربت هذا القاموس من جوجل

http://www.google.com/dictionary

اختر القاموس إنجليزي <> عربي .. يمكن ترجمة كلمة عربية للإنجليزية أو العكس

Unknown said...

Jordan is next on my list this summer. I'll be going from Damascus. As for exposure to low register, uneducated speech, the closest you can get to it through TV shows is Syrian series Spotlight (بقعة ضوء) as in many episodes the actors play the parts of low class, uneducated people. In my opinion massive exposure to that will help, but only if you are interested in the Levantine (Syrian/Lebanese) dialect, as Jordanian has a lot of Bedouin elements in it! Good luck!

The Arabic Student said...

Cat, yes it was a good experience. Jordan is the only country I've been to outside of the US so it was an eye opener.

makkay, I have used the google dictionary before and it is good with single words in MSA but if you want to know something from dialect it doesn't know.

George, thanks for the suggestion! I'll have to look for that series. I'm very interested in Lebanese and Syrian dialects.

CZAREK said...

Hi there Arabic:)

Nice to hear you again
I was following your posts last time once a week ,but nothing has appeared so I thought that you disappeared ,but Thanx God you are here.

I am very happy that you had an oportunity to go to Jordan(and I hope that you had a good chance to show your good arabic for people who live there).
I have the same plan like you(but for sure would prefer to visit Syria cos I am more focused on Syrian dialect.The Jordanian accent sounds a bit diffrent for me(words are close but sometimes completely diffrent and the prononcuation(with "q" or g) is let say close to MSA than SA.

I made whole translation for one of the serial that you mentioned .

If you have any questions about the words ,just ask.
I post the link it contains 3 parts(here is 1\3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR8VVHtiF0c&feature=related

Greetings
Czarek

The Arabic Student said...

Czarek, I just watched that episode you posted. I really like this show بقعة ضوء. It's a lot better than the soap operas that make up most of Arabic media. It's actually entertaining.

I agree that Jordanian Arabic is much closer to MSA than Syrian Arabic. I bought a lot of Jordanian music when I was there and I have a lot of trouble understanding it.

Did you post the translation you made of the spotlight episode somewhere? I'd like to check it out.

CZAREK said...

Hi there,

Let me know where should i post my translation and then I will do

Greetings

Anonymous said...

Hello, Andrew! Nice to hear from you and am very happy that you had the chance to travel to Jordan! Nothing compares to traveling and making use of the language you are learning! ;) So, for when is the next trip planned? :D

Layla from ATL

The Arabic Student said...

Nice to hear from you again Layla. I wish I had another trip in planning, but the next place I travel will probably just be to Virginia to see family lol. 3 states to the north.

Anonymous said...

Well, better than nothing! :p :D

And how are you these days? Everything ok? Still reading interesting books? :p How is the weather there?

Layla

dana said...

I live in jordan and i have visited Jarash ,
Um Qais and The Dead Sea
and that was cool
by the way
i watched your video on you tube and i thought you a syrian at the first time ,some Jordanian or Levantine people or other Arab are extra white no wonder they thought u an arab that is very normal lol