in tunis...
So work sent me on a three day assignment in Tunisia - following "Glamour's" advice in their last US issue, i shall not blog about my work.
What i will say though is that they put me in a sweet hotel, but VERY far away from anything even the airport!
So here's what i know now
1) Tuna in French is called "thon" - and boy you see that everywhere here, on pizzas, sandwiches, pasta you name it
2) the 7th of november is a REALLY important date for tunisians
3) The taxi's are nice - but expensive!
4) i have been ripped off in the market - but i guess there is some sort of justice in that since people get ripped off all the time in Egypt
5) Sidi bou seid is Beautiful !! simply divine!
6) Barsha - means a lot in tunisian Arabic
7) 5 minutes = drj in tunisian Arabic
8) my leabanese arabic is better than my tunisian arabic - if you know how good/bad (depending how you look at it) my lebanese arabic is like, you would understand what i mean, if not check with my roomie she can explain
9) Tunisians greet you with Maa'Sleme - which means bye in Egyptian arabic, so you can understand my level of disorientation
10) I understood a third of what has been said to me, simply because that third was in French!
Great three days!!
5 comments:
my Tunisian now is better than my Egyptian! i'm 1 Egyptian with more than 9 Tunisians who watched so many egyptian movies!
Hey Luli,
Tunisia aye? Word has it that Tunisia has some of the most bueatiful places in northern Africa? any updats on that one? Excuse my ignorance but how great is the difference in Arabic languages across the countries? Are they all based out of one language with different dialects? Are they like French/Italian/Spanish in their simularity?
cheers
John
And they say "zoozo" instead of intnayn for the number 2. Weirdos.
John, Tunisian is a very different dialect to egyptian. Think of how different Jamaicans speak English compared to Australians, then imagine they mixed it with about 50% French words all throughout, and the French words changed into Jamaican-ised heavily accented english sounding words. When Tunisians are speaking full speed normal Tunisian, Egyptians or Lebanese etc wouild hardly understand anything.
However, they can all have a go at speaking "Egyptian" arabic, just like how anyhow in the English speaking world knows how to put on an American accent because of seeing the movies and tv etc growing up. They can probably speak classical "Fusha" arabic as well, and most will speak straight up french if you ask...
HAHA!
Egypt is the US of the Middle East!!
Yayayayaay!
Well they do say Cairo is "Hollywood of the East"
Well i do not know about tunisia being one of the most beasutiful places in north africa. It's nice in the summer with all the beaches. But i think Morocco is more rich in culture and has the beaches as a plus.
And Egypt?! well i would be veru subjective here, but it IS the best ;)
Ha.ha..now you understand why I had such a hard time when I started learning arabic! I had picked up a bunch of Tunisian and when I started speaking it to people who didn't speak Tunisian they kept telling me I was pronouncing everything wrong! Then I would go to my Tunisian friends and ask them and they would tell me I was saying it right! One word of warning....NEVER use the Tunisian word for Bread in Morocco :)
Post a Comment