Thoughts
I think - touch wood - that I'm getting better.
Thanks for the comments, everyone - I really appreciate them. Sorry about not being able to answer questions directly - I would reply individually if I could, but there has been a slight hitch in that I haven't quite been able to work out how you do it. Whenever I do, I will!
So. An update, let's see if I can make it briefer than the last. (Which to be honest won't be hard.) On Thursday was the placement test, about which the less said the better. The rest of the weekend was uneventful. Not being well kind of threw a damper on things. There was a rugby tournament on Friday between the Syrian national team and various other Arab sides which some of the others went to, although I didn't. (I wanted to, but I was asleep.) Apparently the standard isn't quite top-notch, but if Hani is anything to go by they must be enthusiastic. I spent rather a lot of time at the internet cafe (this place is literally the social hub of Bab Touma, at least for all the foreigners: anything you need or want - a room, a phone, a chess game, a football game, calligraphy lessons, a lift back to a restaurant on the other side of the city where you left your shopping - Firas and Fadi are your men) and otherwise not doing very much. I watched people play chess. I bought a phone. (Syrian simcards object to functioning inside my English phone, for reasons I don't entirely understand.) I wandered round the streets a lot.
The nice thing about having to stay in was that on Saturday evening, I got to know the German lady staying in the same house as me a bit better, and she took me to a restaurant she knew - Haretna, another bustling, inconceivably vast two-storeyed, open-roofed eatery of the style they seem to be fond of here, tucked away down a little Bab Touma street like it was a tiny one-room cafe. We had a thought-provoking conversation, though I can't explain why here... Take my word for it, though. It was topical.
Then on Sunday, Mum, you will be glad to hear I got some washing done. By hand, which wasn't much fun, but with hot water, which is something. (All had become clear about how to obtain not only hot water for washing but also for showers the day before.) So that's one problem resolved. In the evening Suzanne and Robert, a German boy who is also staying in our house, invited me out to eat with them. This was very enjoyable. I can now speak a little German. Ich kann nicht deutsch spreche. Ich lerne gerne Fremsprachen (?). Ich kann nicht mehr essen. Apparently overcome by a fit of mischief, Robert told me that this was ich mochte noch mehr essen, but then Suzanne took pity on me and a German lesson ensued. I can conjugate some regular verbs in the present and express a few trivialities.
(Also, how cool is it that many of the verbs for basic actions in English are similar to those in German - lachen, sprechen, singen - betraying the Saxon origins of our language? I remember reading somewhere that 1000 of these basic words are the same in German or the Nordic languages - that in English we use these terms in simple everyday speech and the Latin- and French-derived forms are 'fancier', so to speak, and that's because after the Norman invasion the upper classes spoke French and the peasants went on speaking their own language. I love etymology.)
Explanation: This was originally one post together with the entry above it - I started writing it on Tuesday and finished today (Sunday). But I split it up because I don't think it made much sense to be writing about next Sunday in a post made on Tuesday. So you get two for the price of one today! Start of Ramadan special...
Thanks for the comments, everyone - I really appreciate them. Sorry about not being able to answer questions directly - I would reply individually if I could, but there has been a slight hitch in that I haven't quite been able to work out how you do it. Whenever I do, I will!
So. An update, let's see if I can make it briefer than the last. (Which to be honest won't be hard.) On Thursday was the placement test, about which the less said the better. The rest of the weekend was uneventful. Not being well kind of threw a damper on things. There was a rugby tournament on Friday between the Syrian national team and various other Arab sides which some of the others went to, although I didn't. (I wanted to, but I was asleep.) Apparently the standard isn't quite top-notch, but if Hani is anything to go by they must be enthusiastic. I spent rather a lot of time at the internet cafe (this place is literally the social hub of Bab Touma, at least for all the foreigners: anything you need or want - a room, a phone, a chess game, a football game, calligraphy lessons, a lift back to a restaurant on the other side of the city where you left your shopping - Firas and Fadi are your men) and otherwise not doing very much. I watched people play chess. I bought a phone. (Syrian simcards object to functioning inside my English phone, for reasons I don't entirely understand.) I wandered round the streets a lot.
The nice thing about having to stay in was that on Saturday evening, I got to know the German lady staying in the same house as me a bit better, and she took me to a restaurant she knew - Haretna, another bustling, inconceivably vast two-storeyed, open-roofed eatery of the style they seem to be fond of here, tucked away down a little Bab Touma street like it was a tiny one-room cafe. We had a thought-provoking conversation, though I can't explain why here... Take my word for it, though. It was topical.
Then on Sunday, Mum, you will be glad to hear I got some washing done. By hand, which wasn't much fun, but with hot water, which is something. (All had become clear about how to obtain not only hot water for washing but also for showers the day before.) So that's one problem resolved. In the evening Suzanne and Robert, a German boy who is also staying in our house, invited me out to eat with them. This was very enjoyable. I can now speak a little German. Ich kann nicht deutsch spreche. Ich lerne gerne Fremsprachen (?). Ich kann nicht mehr essen. Apparently overcome by a fit of mischief, Robert told me that this was ich mochte noch mehr essen, but then Suzanne took pity on me and a German lesson ensued. I can conjugate some regular verbs in the present and express a few trivialities.
(Also, how cool is it that many of the verbs for basic actions in English are similar to those in German - lachen, sprechen, singen - betraying the Saxon origins of our language? I remember reading somewhere that 1000 of these basic words are the same in German or the Nordic languages - that in English we use these terms in simple everyday speech and the Latin- and French-derived forms are 'fancier', so to speak, and that's because after the Norman invasion the upper classes spoke French and the peasants went on speaking their own language. I love etymology.)
Explanation: This was originally one post together with the entry above it - I started writing it on Tuesday and finished today (Sunday). But I split it up because I don't think it made much sense to be writing about next Sunday in a post made on Tuesday. So you get two for the price of one today! Start of Ramadan special...
posted by imeander at 12:11 PM
2 Comments:
That's awesome. I kind of want to learn German, just because it shows up a lot in the history I'm interested in, and it is currently a useful language to know in the business world, so if I absolutely fail in history, I'd have German to fall back on. That is, of course, assuming that I learn German eventually.
(I love it when nb talks. Just generally. It tends to be worth listening.)
Glad you're feeling better. Look after yourself. Try not to make us all look bad by becoming fluent in five different languages.
There were some spanish people on the train today talking about something very random. I think they were talking about battles and casualties in and odd mix of english and spanish.
I got very confused.
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