Culture Note

I’m absolutely certain that you, dear non-native Arabic speaker currently located in Cairo, want no part in anything that could jeopardize the delicate, spotless reputation that foreigners living in Egypt have worked so hard to maintain over the years. In the spirit of this sentiment, TeamMaha has compiled the following brief guide to commonly used titles in Egypt to help smooth out your day-to-day interactions with the population of om al-dunya. ...

When I first moved to Egypt I used to be able to tell whether I was having a good Arabic day or not judging by the nationality people guessed I was: Syrian/Lebanese meant I had thrown a Shami word or two into the conversation, but was generally doing okay; Moroccan meant that my speech was mostly unintelligible but still coding as Arabic; and American meant that I should probably take a nap before trying to use real words again. The spectrum of compliments I’ve received on my Arabic ability over the years has also been quite broad, ranging from delight to suspicion to spontaneous marriage proposals. ...

Watching TV in Arabic is a fantastic way to get more listening practice and generally improve your vocabulary and comprehension, and I highly suggest all Arabic learners do this during their down time whenever possible. But when you get sick of that, or when there’s nothing to watch except Saudi men practicing falconry and Amr Adeeb flailing his arms about / having his weekly heart attack on air, you’ll inevitably find yourself flipping over to an English language movie. And I’m here to tell you how to make this experience quadruple the fun: pay attention to the subtitles. ...

I was the only foreigner sitting in a classroom of Egyptian twenty-somethings, trying my best to sound just smart enough to let my classmates go on believing I was half Arab of some variety during a remedial Arabic grammar class. Suddenly, a distraction grabbed by attention: فين المبتدا يا ماما؟ يا ماما!!؟ “Where’s the subject, mom? Mom!!?” I looked around for some sort of reaction, like the giggles and pointing that always broke out in elementary school when one unfortunate student accidentally called the teacher ‘mom.’ No no, this situation was the reverse: it was our professor that had called the student ‘mom,’ and it was absolutely, 100% fine. ...