I have been very distracted lately at work and feel at times like everything is going to collapse around me! While for the majority of my pregnancy I have not really had mood swings (my husband may beg to differ), I have noticed that in the last week I have been getting annoyed, antsy, anxious, etc rather quickly. I have had a stuffed nose for about 2 weeks now (I did get both the flu and H1N1 shot - yay!) which is not helping my head and probably has helped me feel so 'off' and 'blah.' I even went home on Wednesday because I wasn't feeling great and didn't want to kill my student workers who are great and lovely and can be oh so not productive like I would prefer at times... (just kidding - they are great, which is why I went home before I snapped for no reason)
I am still behind on work and I have not prepared my stuff for when I give birth as much as I'd like. I need to really get on that before our intern comes in and before the winter break since I'll only be here a month after that!!!
Personally, I'm behind on house work, the baby's room (well, I'm still undecided on much of that, but I don't think the baby will care too much anyways until they are... 1? 2?) and my language stuff. I NEED to start up my Arabic again!!!! 1. I have only really been talking in English during my pregnancy and so baby H isn't getting any of the sounds 2. I have been married over 5 years and it's just sad that I'm not more proficient than I am 3. F----l's mom is coming for about 2 months to help with baby H and I think I need to get my Arabic at least better than her English. It's just not fair to her that I'm still so bad. It's true - I'm more COMFORTABLE with my Arabic I know now, but my vocabulary is just sad. ... And I'm all talk and no action in my learning.
Any tips for learning? I get annoyed because many of the 'basic' level stuff is so basic that I would never use it in conversation with my husband, his family and our friends. I sort-of jump to higher levels, but I think that is screwing things up. And I know colloquial much more than MSA which also messes up when I look at language books. :( It's annoying. F----l thinks that if I watch more tv it will help, but I find that unless it's a Syrian or Gulf show, they don't repeat words enough for me to understand. I can't tell I understand more than years ago, but the Egyptian shows just don't repeat words enough to help with language learning!!! ;)
Ok - I was able to talk about something and so now I'll get back to work! Wish me luck!
I had the opposite problem. My MSA was great (when i was still studying) but my colloquial sucked which meant i couldn't communicate with anyone here. What about movies?
ReplyDeletelol - well Egyptian is SOO different anyways!!! :) That is seriously why I don't like trying to get language from the movies - most of them are Egyptian and I don't find them repetitive enough the way Egyptian Arabic is. Syrian, however is FANTASTIC - they are started doing AMAZING shows (well, very good anyways) and if you haven't watched any - in particular Bab al Hara - you should because they are great. And for language learning they are much more helpful because they repeat things more... When someone come in they say the same greetings and stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteYea, I'm glad that I know the colloquial more, but if I want to test I need the MSA and it's good for jobs and news and stuff too... :(
I think Egyptian is the easiest to learn. I have tried the movie thing to help learn, but unless the movie is subtitled in English it does not help that much. I do think that the older black and white movies have less complicated dialouges. Lately I have become addicted to the silly "Turkish Soaps" that are dubbed in MSA Arabic. I understand very little of this, but it might help you.
ReplyDeleteHi Fleeting Glimpse! :)
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the older movies are MUCH easier! I have a hard time getting into the Turkish dramas, but maybe I should try again... Do you recommend any of them on right now (what channel?)? I tend to prefer the Syrian/Gulf Arabic because that's what my family speaks, but the Egyptian is ok and I do know some of it. I just feel like I can understand dialect differences better (or rather quicker) with Syrian/Gulf than Egyptian... :(
I do like the comedic 'sitcoms' out of Egypt and find their dialogue easier. Hmph, I just need to practice and learn more words!! ;) Which, goes back that I'm lazy... lol
Thanks guys for your helpful comments!! I really appreciate them!