No, no my dear readers I won't be boring and teach you arabic in this post :) Just think that the language is another culture aspect interesting to learn and want to share my arabic experience so far. By the way, did you know that arabic language is spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Syria?
I'm thrilled when traveling in a country with a completly alphabet. First time was in the train station when we arrived Prague (Czech Republic) while InterRailing, there were many signs but no translations so we felt a bit lost with a feeling of adrenaline at the same time.
Then I been in India and wanted to learn sanscrit, like it's very easy to learn, yeah, yeah right. Greece was also fun to see all those weird characters.
Arabic is just like chinese or mandarin, they say feng, feng, feng, sounds the same but actually those 3 words have different meanings and you say it in a different way.
Everytime I travel a country I try to learn the basic words like thank you, hello, how are you. In Morocco is hard to learn arabic because they also speak french, berber and other dialects, so if you try to follow any type of conversation is hard, you cannot tell which language they're speaking. But we've been making all the efford to learn one arabic word per day: Salem, Shukran, Inshalah, Lma, Rhodes... We say these words on a daily basis and if we need to ask something we try to speak french. (Thank you moroccans for that opportunity!)
You should see how pround moroccans are when we speak arabic words... some even start talking in arabic like we are experts hehe
My french sucks big time! I'm kinda ashamed that studyed 6 years of french in school and cannot have a conversation. I believe that the best way to learn a language is to be in that country at the same time. Practicing is the key, just theory is easy to forget.
Sometimes I daydream how cool would be if we could learn french (or any other language) in school and then spend 2 months in France at some French family house to practice (and obviously to travel also). I call this Culture Exchange.
Would you attend this gym? :D
Phew I'm glad that stop sign looks the same everywhere, imagine you are driving, you see STOP in arabic and you don't understand. OoOOooops!
All signs are also written in french which makes any traveller life much easier.
Só para saberes que vou a Marrocos em dezembro e vou ler todos os teus posts para preparar a viagem. :) A ideia é aterrarmos em Marraquexe e fazer uma road trip ali pelas redondezas. Tens algumas dicas de locais cool ou cenas porreias para experienciar? Bjo. :)
ReplyDeletePara ser sincera Marraquexe foi das cidades de Marrocos que menos gostei. O turismo encontra-se massificado e, embora a sua medina seja deslumbrante, torna-se saturante o facto dos vendedores chatearem o tempo inteiro com as suas vendas. Gostei muito de visitar o Palácio Bahia e o Bairro Judeu.
DeleteA minha melhor dica era pegarem no carro e irem em direcção a Ouarzazate, a estrada serpenteia e tem vistas magnificas. Antes de chegarem a Ouarzazate visitem Ait Benhaddou, que é uma cidade fortificada muito antiga, com várias casinhas feitas de adobe e onde foram realizados vários filmes. Em Ouarzazate podes seguir as dicas de uma pessoa local: http://www.marrocos.com/destinos/ouarzazate/
O ideal era chegarem às Dunas de Erg Chebi para visitarem o deserto mas com apenas 5 dias já me parece apertado.