We were meeting with a senior Sheikh, and my job was to take notes while more senior diplomats did the talking. Once I had an accurate record of the conversation, I would write the salient points in a cable to be sent back to Washington. Suit, notepad, pen, years of Arabic study, I thought I was ready.

When we arrived, our Iraqi counterpart started talking quietly. So quietly I could not make out what he was saying over the air conditioner. In the beginning after we finished with pleasantries, I only understood words and phrases from the Sheikh. “الصحوات” OK, I’m going to infer that means Sons of Iraq. “السياسة المزدوجة” – “double standard politics” –  that I can understand.” But as I listened, my ear did not focus and I was having trouble tracking the conversation.

No! Focus!

I scrambled to write any comprehensible sentence, but most were not. I couldn’t blame the air conditioner for my difficulties, I just didn’t understand what he was saying. It didn’t help that I lacked any background in Iraqi politics, or that I knew political parties by their English acronyms rather than their Arabic names, or that I didn’t know of any of the personalities being discussed.

But I knew Arabic, right? After being in Iraq for about a month, I had held meetings in Arabic, listened to and understood speeches in Arabic, and been praised for having a “wonderful Tunisian accent.” But I don’t really know Arabic, and the Sheikh ranting in front of me was living proof. 5 minutes in to the meeting, some of his points begin to make sense, but I was worried abut using so much context that I was in danger of making up details to fit the story. By this point I confirmed his accent was more than just swapping letters- it was the entire Iraqi dialect flooding into my already overfilled brain. At points I didn’t even know what letters he was speaking, which mad words, sentences, or ideas far out of reach.

When the conversation flowed to familiar subjects like minister candidates, things made sense. Ah yes, this is Arabic. This is the language I’ve spent 5 years learning. When the power went out, he continued without punctuation, ignoring the darkness. Without the air conditioning, I wrote a few of his points clearly before the speech drifted back into obscurity. At points, his voice would drop nearly to a whisper, yet somehow he would manage talk faster. I caught some phrases, like “grab networks by their roots,” or ‘buzzed their heads with jet-planes,” but I was still lost. His accent, his vocabulary, and his stream of consciousness sentences were all too difficult and too distracting.

Stop thinking about the way he says it,  just listen to what he says!

While our diplomat’s questions could steer the conversation back to reality, we were 40 minutes into the meeting and I was struggling. My three pages of notes were a mess: scrawled in English shorthand and interrupted by half-written Arabic words. Some bullets were nothing but 2 words extracted from an entire minute of  the Sheikh’s dialect that I had no hope of repeating or understanding.

Finally, the meeting finished. “مع السلامة, فرصة سعيدة, تشرفنا”

As we discussed the meeting on the way back to the embassy, it turned out that I wasn’t the only American struggling. Even so, the cable was due the next day.

In the State Department, we were told that we could “get the most exposure” to the local language in a consular tour. Through visa interviews, the reasoning went, we could learn the language through repetition, building on the base of language we learned in the U.S. This was false. Linguistically, visa interviews were the same on the 1st week, and the 30th, and the last. During my year in Saudi Arabia, interviews were 90 seconds of Arabic repeated 10,000 times. Through hyper-repetition, I stopped learning anything new, and after 11 months in Riyadh, there was no progress.

My new position in Baghdad is different. The portfolios may be limited, but the job of a political officer demands every language modality. Many of the people I work with in the Iraqi government don’t speak English at all, and even those that do prefer Arabic. Rather than 90 second interviews, political reporting demands in depth conversations, and enough sense to catch nuance and respond in kind. It’s easy to get overwhelmed- but that’s the only way to continue learning

I’m still finding my way around this job, but I’m optimistic that this year I’ll be able to make progress.

Sometime last year I tried to answer a simple question: compared to other languages, how valuable is Arabic?

For simplicity, the question could be narrowed to: “How valuable is it for an American college student to study Arabic, as opposed to another language?”

To attempt to answer this question, the combined GDP of a language represents ‘demand’. The number of college students in America studying that language represents ‘supply’.

Simply put:

‘Value’ = ‘GDP PPP of X’ / ‘American college students studying X’

The numbers are awful, miss all sorts of groups (the biggest being heritage speakers), but are still interesting.

Interesting things:

• Common college languages don’t offer much of a comparative advantage, due to the large number of students studying them.
• All languages are much more valuable at the advanced level. (Doh!)
• Languages commonly touted as ‘valuable’ tend to be valuable.
• Portegeuse comes out a clear winner, as it’s significantly easier to learn than Arabic, Korean, or Chinese.
• Japanese is a clear loser, as it is supposed to be just as hard as Arabic, Chinese, or Korean.

Source data here.

After reading about wildly differing Arabic dialects, I expected nothing but linguistic disaster when I came to Egypt. I hoped I would be understood, but I thought مصري was going to be as comprehensible to my ears as French. However, when I went and started talking, I was surprised; conversations were not an exercise in hand gestures and exaggerated syllables. Changing the ج to Giim and the ق to ء takes mental processing, but with a little lag, a مصري sentence can be mentally translated into Fusha, and a Fusha reply has been perfectly adequate for understanding.

Coming to Egypt proves utility of Fusha for the travelling Arabic speaker. Lapses into نجدي Arabic have been universally unsuccessful. Anything in my pseudo-gulf colloquial, like أبغى  or وش  was either a subject of quaint amusement or blank stares. Fusha also means that the ‘expat Arabic’ dialect is also easily understandable. Regardless of origin, it seems that almost all foreigners learn a Fusha and only switch out the most common 30 عامية words as they live in the region. This applies to Chinese in Riyadh, Germans in Damascus, or Americans in Cairo. The only other real change is swapping a few letter sounds- and a pseudo-local accent is born. Ultra-common words like زين، عيز، and فراخ can be inferred from the surrounding Fusha sentence, and then ‘expat-Arabic’ is easy.

If only there were an actual visa that could gain access to the entire Arab world!

Finally, the most important part about using Fusha outside of an adopted عامية region is that it’s an acceptable, if stuffy, dialect to native speakers. For an English analogue, using نجدي outside of Saudi Arabia would be like using a thick Indian accent in America. It could be understood, but it conjures many stereotypes and can inhibit transmitting any form of subtlety. Fusha, on the other hand, is talking like the Economist about a cheeseburger- certainly out of place, but mostly understood and still possibly respected.

While I still may resent many hours spent learning the dual and ‘arab, my trip to Cairo reminds that Fusha still serves as the only real linguistic passport in the Arab world.

For the عيد we had a week off, meaning no interviews and the chance to travel far afield. So I took a vacation to Sri Lanka. Surprisingly, I used a little Arabic almost every day. First, there are many Sri Lankans that worked in Saudi Arabia and they know a little bit of the language. Also I ran into a expatriate travelers in Negumbo, and met three Saudi girls while sipping coffee at a luxury resort in Galle.

Arabic may not be a quite a ‘global language’ but speaking it can  help in more and more places.

I was sitting at Starbucks, going over new vocabulary from موسم الهجرة إلى الشمال when I ran across “شجرة الطلح”. Hans Wehr didn’t help, saying it was either an Acacia tree or a banana tree and context didn’t help distinguish. So, I leaned over to the Saudis sitting next to me and ask them if they knew what type of tree شجرة الطلح is. The first leaned over the book examining the paragraph. Then each Saudi shrugged his shoulders as he passed the novel around hoping one knew the precise meaning. None of them did.  As they handed the book back and I sat down to continue, they first complimented me “ولله تتكلم كويس″ and then I heard them talking amongst themselves: “It’s great that he’s learning Arabic!”

This experience is a microcosm of the best  part of learning Arabic: Arabic speakers love it when foreigners learn Arabic, and forgive even atrocious mistakes. It makes sense, as the range of Arabic is so wide that they can hear strange accents or odd vocab from native speakers. I often hear Saudis kindly insisting my accent is “مغربي” even though I’ve never been within 1000 miles of Morrocco; (Lebanese is also often assumed due to my complexion and bits of لهجة شامية) Moreover, the range of Arabic is so wide that they are forgiving when we have poor accents or use odd words. Especially in literature, it’s not uncommon for stubborn words such as شجرة الطلحto be outside the active vocabulary of an ‘educated  native speaker’. So when we don’t know a word, it’s not a surprise. Most importantly, native speakers always try to help, always compliment any hint of a “لهجة ممتازة”, and are always appreciative of every effort we take to learn the language.

According to the State Department, I became fluent in Arabic two months ago. Yesterday, I accidentally convinced the first Saudi that I was Lebanese based on my language ability. But four months into working at the State Department I feel like I’m spinning my wheels and at best not losing ground with Arabic.

It could be that work occupies so much time and Arabic is a jealous mistress. I’m used to spending 50 hour weeks studying Arabic like I did in January. Now, those 50 hours go to the embassy, and I’m lucky if I study an hour a day.  Even though I’m using Arabic in interviews, I can’t push the boundaries of my knowledge like I did with intense study. Since coming to Riyadh, I’ve struggled to even review vocab for 15 minutes a day. So, I’m starting to forget vocab that I learned while in Damascus in May. Also disheartening, I have not finished a single book since coming to Riyadh a month ago compared to 5 for my three months in living in DC.

Also, the sense of success from passing an Arabic test for pay bonus has faded into pessimism about future progress. The State Department’s language institute always emphasizes that deep knowledge of a language takes orders of magnitude more time than superficial understanding. On average, progressing each additional level on the ILR scale takes as long as the combined time spent studying the language so far. So according to State guidelines, if it takes 3040 hours to go from nothing to a 3/3, it will take another 3040 hours to go from here to a 4/4. If I were to view the problem purely in terms of vocabulary, gaining appreciably more understanding of the language means learning thousands more obscure words, rather than hundreds. The good news is that I have a year in Saudi Arabia to absorb as much Arabic as I can. The bad news is that the path of learning has shifted from a sprint to a marathon.

After 1506 hours of study (so far) I’m finally using Arabic rather than studying it. On one hand, it is extraordinarily gratifying that all the time spent studying is being put to positive use. On the other, it reminds me of how far I have to go.

At the window, Arabic is invaluable. A quarter of people I talk to don’t speak English على الإطلاق, and most are more comfortable with my Arabic than their English. Yet using Arabic professionally is different than studying, as the focus shifts from learning everything within reach to learning few things very well. The best example is some of the set phrases repeatedly used throughout the day:

رقم ستة و ستين إلى شباك إحدة عشرة لو سمحت

Or my personal favorite: لازم أن تتكلمي بصوت عالي جداً لو سمحتِ من الصعب أن أسمع صوتك

Even if I say them wrong, these phrases are no longer separate words to compose every time. They’ve merged into a single thought that comes out as fast as my tongue can get through ع’s and ح’s. Hopefully, I will be able to expand this chunking to other parts of the language, but only time will tell if I become better at the language as a whole or just some lines of questions and answers.

I’m about to head to the Kingdom, and I want to pack light. So the books that I have finished are not coming with me. If you want any of them, just write a comment below with your name and a way of getting in contact with you. If you are the first person to claim a book, I’ll contact you and then send the book to you via media mail within a week or two. Please only claim one book until everyone has a chance.
The books are:

كأنها نائمة: إلياس خوري
بنات الرياض: رجاء عبدالله الصانع
هاري بوتر و حجرة الاسرار
هاري بوتر و سجين ازكبان
هاري بوتر و كأس النار
هاري بوتر و جماعة العنقاء
هاري بوتر و الإمير الهجين
هاري بوتر و مقدسات الموت

“You Americans, you learn some Arabic, we learn a little English. We can all be friends.”

It had been a particularly tough day, the verbs and the vocabulary taking their toll.

But somehow this image spurred me on.

I feel like this correspondant makes the atmpsphere seem a little more hardworking than what I remember, but maybe I was just lazy