First Time Speaking? Here We Go! (Arabic Week 9)

So I did it. I had a conversation with a native Arabic speaker and I'm here to share my story of how it went.

Heading into the call, I was nervous. What will happen if they don't understand me? What will happen if I don't understand them? What if we literally just sit there and can't communicate because everything I've done in the past two months has been wrong?! Even after being told by a few people who speak Arabic that my accent was very good for a beginner, my confidence was in the gutter.

Trying to show how I was feeling with a face expression? Okay.

I've felt this way before though. I remember heading into my first Chinese call feeling the same way. I don't get nervous before a call in Chinese anymore because I have done it many times; it no longer is a new fear. Leading up to the call I went over the phrases that I intended to say and tried to predict the type of things that I would hear in response. Slowly, I was able to build up some confidence that I can get through this call.

The call started off really well. I was able to say hello and introduce myself. The phrases I was expecting to hear are what I heard. Obviously there came a point where I was pushing too far and had incorrect sentence structures. This could easily discourage you (which it at the later point of the call and afterward the call I was) but I was able to look back and realize a few things that did go well. First, I was able to understand and converse for multiple phrases without stumbling. Second, there were multiple times that I was able to determine what something meant in Arabic without actually knowing the translation due to context (I notice him asking whether I want something written in English or Arabic as well as realize when he says "good"). Finding these small successes can really help keep you positive when you hit a struggle.

Having a patient person to chat with is important. I was lucky to have Abdu who was able to slowly explain some of the things I was saying but correct them. I may have been saying the wrong tense, the wrong plural form, or a slightly incorrect pronunciation. The one thing that was really good was that he would have me go back and repeat a sentence in pieces, breaking down the pronunciation, and then bring it back to a full sentence. If the mistakes aren't corrected, they aren't fixed for later times. It also helps to have somebody to continually encourage you to keep trying instead of saying, "Let's just go to English because I can't understand you." It pushed me out of the comfort zone and helped me with phrases I didn't even know prior to the call.

We established before the call that we would stick to basic topics. This allowed me to work within my boundaries. I wouldn't have any random questions I wasn't ready for. I tried as much as possible to stay speaking Arabic which also made some things difficult as you can see. There are certain phrases that I just didn't have that I need to learn to be more beneficial for next time.

Some notes and phrases I wrote down during the call. Hopefully I can benefit from them in the future.

Overall, I was happy to have Abdu help me and I am hoping that in the coming chats I can improve to have a more comfortable conversation together.

Good news and bad news. I was able to record my first conversation with a native speaker. Unfortunately, his audio got lost somewhere during the recording so it mostly looks like I'm talking to myself. You can notice multiple times throughout the call that I have absolutely no idea what Abdu was saying but I did my best to keep going because had I just given up and decided that Arabic was too hard I wouldn't be able to progress. Nobody will be perfect and we have to accept that. If you're too afraid to make a mistake, you never will take a risk at all.

Until next time.