Language Blooper #2456

Arabic has letters that sound the same but don’t sound the same. Does that make any sense? Example: they have a heavy “d” and a normal “d.” The normal “d” to us sounds like an English “d.” Well, to be honest the heavy “d” sounds like a normal English “d” too.

I am learning that it isn’t so much that these two sound very different; it is that they affect the vowels around them and how you say them. (Does that make sense to anyone, because that sounds completely goofy to me?)

Anyways, it kills me in conversation. I was calling a guy trying to arrange a time to go and have shyy (tea) with him, so I kept asking him, “Inta faadi? (are you free?)” He sounded really confused on the phone, so I thought maybe it was a bad connection, so I kept saying it over and over. Inta faadi? Inta faadi? Inta faadi? Finally, he gets it, or I said it right, and we set up a time.

So here was my mistake: if it’s a heavy “d” it changes the “aa” to a sound like an “o” in “cot.” The way I was saying it was like the “a” in “fat,” which is the normal “d.”

If you think you’re confused, imagine having this explained to you in Arabic like it was to me. Yikes! No wonder, I’m lost.

So the reason he was lost, was that I wasn’t saying, “Are you free?” I was saying, “Are you my redeemer?” Yeah, I can only imagine how awkward that was for him. Me, of course, being stupid, just kept saying it thinking it was a bad phone connection. “Are you my redeemer? Are you my redeemer? Are you my redeemer?

Geez, I’m such an idiot.