The time I spend in Ramallah has some kind of rhythm to it, dictated mainly by my studies. This time is punctuated by massive three-day weekends during which I travel and there is no normality.
I still enjoy my course at PAS (the Palestine and Arabic Studies programme at Birzeit University). My teacher is good, and although the level of the class isn’t really bringing me anything new, there are others in the class whose level of Fusha (“Fuss-haa”, a.k.a. MSA/Modern Standard Arabic) is higher then mine, which keeps things stimulating.
Others at PAS aren’t so lucky, though. My closest friend here just left after trying very hard but failing to remedy the problems with their Palestinian Arabic class. Instead they have bought the great but elusive Yalla Nihki ‘Arabi course and that seems to be going better than with a real teacher. Other’s experiences have been similar, especially with regards to Palestinian Arabic.
It seems to be a common problem that speakers of Arabic dialects rarely have any idea of how to teach them as languages, seeing them as sort of random and unpredictable due to their unwritten nature. But of course, like any language, there is grammar and there is structure and it’s these that students need. Instead learners are often just lumbered with long lists of vocabulary and set phrases and given no real idea of how to put them together.
I was expecting this to be the case here as it had been in Egypt. My plan was to learn by talking to people. However, the amount of time I spend talking to Palestinians in Ramallah is quite limited, as at the weekends I spend time travelling with other foreigners, while weekday evenings are spent doing the school work I didn’t do on my long weekend. However, with a few modifications of my pre-existing Egyptian Arabic and Fusha I can still get engaged in the odd political discussion in the kitchen with my leftie housemates. This makes me happy.
There’s only one real solution though: I’ll have to come to Palestine again.
