aakram-kum aallah

Audio with Theyab's pronunciation

Learning Arabic from scratch is tough, muwaafqiin? An alphabet full of dots and flicks,
reading and writing min al-yamiin lay al-yisaar, words that change depending on whether
they are mudhakar or mu'anath or jem: and a pronunciation that is, for me at least,
mu:aqad ... the temptation to give up learning is waayid.

And the biggest trap of all is having an international language as a mother tongue.

bayn fatrah wa fatrah, it feels like this. But atdarrab a little bit every day and,
because of this, I discover that agdr agul akthar min maa aDHin. So when doubts pile
up, I remember that aHsan min maa asawii shay.

Being British, I come from a culture where making khaTaa' with language is a no-no.
I believe that in Kuwait, it's nafs ash-shay. So al-fikrah of speaking in front of others
is still an obstacle. But, after thirteen years of learning French, I remember my akhTaa',
the laughs they provoked, the fact of being mortally embarrassed at times, was part of the
bittersweet and necessary learning curve of doing something that's important.

موافقين	muwaafqiin?	Don’t you (pl) agree?
من اليمين لي اليسار	min al-yamiin lay al-yisaar	From the right to the left
مذكر	mudhakar	Masculine
مؤنث	mu’anath	Feminine
جمع	jem:	Plural
معقد	mu:aqad	Complicated
كبير	kabiir	Huge
بين فترة و فيترة	bayn fatrah wa fatrah	From time to time
اتدرب	atdarrab	I learn
قدر اقل اكثر من ما اظن	agdr agul akthar min maa aDHin	I can speak more than I think
احسن من ما اسوي شي	aHsan min maa asawii shay	Better than doing nothing
خطآ ، اخطاء	khaTaa’, akhTaa’	A mistake, mistakes
نفس الشي	nafs ash-shay	The same thing
الفكرة	al-fikrah	The idea