Here's to Arabic

I apologize in advance, because today's post will probably leave some of you either bored or bewildered. If you find yourself feeling either of these things after reading the first sentence, feel free to stop reading, it won't hurt my feelings.

But let me explain myself. In about a minute, I'm going to make the argument that learning a new language is a lot like dating a new person. It is my guess that I'll loose about half of you because you've been married for like 150 years (just kidding, but a long time, lots of happy marriages in my family- that's a good thing) and you don't remember much about dating a new person. The other half of you, though you may have started dating someone recently, probably haven't started a new language since middle or early high school and may not remember what its like. So you, dear reader, probably don't have much to relate to in this post. But, even if you don't, maybe you should stick around, because if you did either or both of these things a long time ago, this post could evoke long buried memories and you might still enjoy it. Either way, this is my blog and if, every once in a while, I want to use it as my own personal diary and ramble to my little heart's content about my wonderful, beautiful, evil, infuriating boyfriend (Arabic), I'm going to do that. And for those of you that have dated someone new and started a new language recently- read on because seriously- the two experiences are so similar!

So when you start learning your first new language it's like falling in love for the first time. Every new thing you learn is so exciting and interesting and cool. It seems so beautiful and so perfect. That's how it was when I was learning Spanish, and, really, it wasn't so different when I started learning Arabic either. You just can't wait to know more.

But then, things start to get serious. You start to commit to the language. You start to realize how complicated the language actually is. This is both good and bad. Its still exciting and with your first language you're usually optimistic. As you know more of the language, like with a new person, it becomes more and more your own. You're proud of it. Like, oh, yeah, that hot guy over there, he's with me. Oh, yeah, that beautiful language someone walking by was just speaking, I understood that. Its cool. But its also hard. You have days where you think its just impossible and that you're never going to become fluent (not sure what the allegorical dating equivalent of that would be... married?) and where you just want to quit. And sometimes you do. Or sometimes you hit a wall and its just over (for example, high school ends and you stop taking classes). And you're sad. And you miss the language. And then you start to forget it and that makes you sad too.

But, maybe, some time passes and you meet a new language, Arabic, or whatever. And, like the first, Spanish for me, its beautiful and exciting. But this time, you've been hurt before, and so you're a little more careful. Nevertheless, you jump in and you start dating Arabic. You're less optimistic, but you also commit sooner because you're older now and you've done this before. And, I swear, this is exactly like dating, you start to compare your new language to your old language. You're thinking, "Oh, that's not how Spanish would have done that, that's not what Spanish would have said, Spanish would have thought that was funny..." and, I'm not kidding, that actually makes you sad. You literally miss the old language, because it had become familiar and you understood it and, damn it, you have to pee and you would have known how to ask where the bathroom was in Spanish!

But, with time you start to understand Arabic more and more, and you actually start to forget Spanish. You stop throwing small Spanish words into otherwise Arabic sentences (okay, that part doesn't really translate to dating). Then, one day, you're in love and happy again! Unfortunately, studying Arabic is somewhat like dating a guy with emotional baggage, a crazy family and a drinking problem, so I haven't actually gotten to that last stage yet. But I'm telling myself I will so I don't go crazy.

Or (and this is probably the conclusion you have reached if by some miracle you're still reading this) studying Arabic 30+ hours a week and still getting yelled at for not practicing enough has, in fact, made me crazy and that's why I just spent half an hour comparing linguistic study to dating.

Crazy or not, its ridiculous that I've spent this much time thinking about this. But Arabic is such a huge part of my life here it is almost impossible not to think about it this much. Anyway, because Arabic is such a hard, beautiful, complicated, amazing language and it is such an important part of my life right now, I really think it would be wrong not to have at least one blog post dedicated to it. So here's to you, Arabic. I love you and I really really really hate you.

Loooove (Aheeeebik in Arabic),
Caddie