Yesterday was the oral exam for my dialect class. I had no problems except when I forgot the word for “yesterday”. I have known that word for three years (since it is the same in Egyptian dialect) and it just absolutely left my brain.
In the morning section of Arabic class we did a vocabulary review and in the afternoon a massive grammar review where once again Hussein’s explanations shined a bright light on the sometimes difficult grammatical explanations in the textbook. After we finished the grammar review we watched a video by this famous Syrian actor whose name escapes me. Every summer he apparently puts on a performance with comedy sketches and the like. This video was from about twelve years ago and involved him reciting an English poem but using Arabic vowels and poetic meter. It is a bit difficult to explain why that is fantastic but Arabic poetic meter is incredibly strict and difficult to master but this man used it perfectly. The beginning part of it can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDDYMmaNXH4. It is a bit difficult to train your ear, but most of it is in fact in English. The first line is “Friend walk in the desert slowly”.
I spent the rest of the night studying with a short break for ice cream with Claire.
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