Tongue-tied

I'm making my first stuttering attempts to learn Arabic. Stephanie Saldana has a particularly apt description of what this process feels like in her book, The Bread of Angels:

"The problem is, my attempts at learning Arabic aren't working. I'm just terrible. The words feel unnatural coming out of my mouth, and I sometimes think my tongue isn't the right shape to pronounce them...Even when I manage to sort out the letters, I can't get any of the new words to stick in my brain, because they don't sound like any words I already know.

Almost every day I've made embarrassing, even offensive mistakes. Last week I went to buy a toothbrush from the pharmacy, and instead of asking the pharmacist if he was open, I asked him, 'Are you a virgin?'" Worst of all, I keep repeating what I hear other people say to me, which always worked fine in English. Yet along with its impossible alphabet, Arabic has separate grammar for speaking to men and women, and all adjectives are gender specific. I've picked up the unfortunate habit of speaking to all of the men around me as though I'm speaking to a woman, insulting their manhood in the process."

So this is what I'm getting myself into. I like learning languages, but every time I start my Arabic tapes, I feel a sense of panic. Even simple phrases like, "Good Morning" (sabah el khair) seem impossible to remember or pronounce. But, I'm already here in the deep end of the pool, so I may as well try to learn to swim.

By the way, Stephanie, who was the first Jerusalemite I ever met, will be in the United States on her first book tour this month. She will be stopping in my home town of Boulder, Colorado, and many other places for anyone who would like to see her speak or buy her wonderful book on falling in love in Syria.