Arabic or Gibberish

People who know me know how I have never been good at communicating in Arabic (not that I'm any good at it in English, but...). Unfortunately, my first job was in a very strong Arabic environment, where people don’t even just say thank you, their thank you’s are very long and last for minutes. When people ask me how I’m, I just say I’m well, thank you (Alhamdullah I’m fine) but they would say it in so many different ways that half of the time I don’t understand what they were saying.

I often (It actually happened ALL the time!!) embarrassed myself with my lack of knowledge of their arabic. I remember in my first few weeks, I had to do a presentation and the manager I was presenting to kept saying “Bayed Allah Wayhech” and I had no idea what to say because I kept translating it to “May God whiten your face” and just wanted to say “your face!”. I later mentioned this to my brother and turns out you actually do say “Wayhech Abyad” (Your face is white). It sounded ridiculous to me but hopefully one day I will be able to say it without laughing.

What I’m trying to say here, is that if you have kids, then teach them the national Arabic dialogue wherever you live, or just send them to some friends in Al Ain for the summer if you’re local. It will make it easier for them to fit it and understand different people, even in one culture.