But I’m not giving up just yet.

I’ve been living with a linguistic frustration for years: I share my daily life with two million Arabic speakers, and I can barely speak a word to them. The people who fix my car are Arab. The people who take care of my health are Arab. 40% of Jerusalemites are Arabic-speaking. The tragedy is that, like me, most Israelis don’t speak Palestinian Arabic. A large chunk of Arabs living here don’t speak Hebrew either, even educated ones. In many cases, both peoples resort to English to bridge the gap, which I find utterly absurd. No wonder we have problems getting on.

Yes, the school I teach in, like many others, boasts an Arabic elective. But guess what? During their three years of high school, the kids don’t learn to communicate in Palestinian Arabic at all. The best they can do is translate parts of the Koran or answer questions on an article in Al Jazeera. Ironically, it’s the army that offers the most effective and fastest route to fluency, training entire units to a high command of Palestinian Arabic. But it’s far too late for me.

Yes, most Israelis know a handful of basic words in Arabic. A lot of them can haggle pretty well in the language. But up until three months ago, I knew nothing save shukran. And I was embarrassed.

So, as part of my sabbatical year studies, I took a course in basic spoken Palestinian Arabic. It was a win-win—finally, I could have a basic lexicon in my pocket, and I get PD (professional development) credits at the same time. PD credits bump up a teacher’s salary, but sadly not enough to keep up with hikes in gas prices.

The course was solid. I was bombarded with questions and exercises. Each unit was dense with lexical gems and useful chunks. The video clips, however, were embarrassingly outdated. An entire clip featured a man trying to decide which music CDs he wanted. What the hell is a CD? The other was an argument between a husband and wife over what he had and hadn’t bought in the shuk. The prices sent me into a fit of nostalgia.

But truly, going back to grade one in anything, particularly at the age of 55, is truly humbling. The garbled dialogues that left me stumped gave me a special kinship with the weaker English learners I’d taught in the past. Back then, I was pretty convinced that learning English was merely a question of willpower. I now realize that when your brain is assaulted by too many alien words, no level of determination will get you over your complete blackout.

After a week or two of my enthusiastic sortie into the world of Palestinian Arabic, I was finally able to greet the Christian Arab cleaner in our building properly. Nice guy. The problem was that before I’d chewed over conjugating “how are you” correctly, he had reverted to Hebrew—which was hands down better than my Arabic.

I nonetheless have to give myself full points for being a very diligent student. The war, which left me housebound for a month, only strengthened my resolve to tackle a language I hear every day. As I sat in front of my laptop, listening to the same dialogue for the eighth time, I realized I couldn’t do this alone.

Palestinian-speaking AI to the rescue. My language assistant churned out Quizlet flashcards as quickly as you could say mabruk. My Netflix watchlist at the gym was soon replaced with Quizlet churn-and-learn—each workout strengthening my conviction that I have no ability to retain anything. Recycle, recycle, recycle—that’s how it’s supposed to work—but it appears that my recycle bin was badly malfunctioning.

In the end, something clicked. I realized how similar Arabic is to Hebrew. We are, after all, cousins. I may not have become fluent, but at least I became a better guesser. I’m also two steps ahead of most Arabic learners, with one Semitic language (albeit with appalling pronunciation) under my belt.

And therein lies the problem, folks. First of all, I’m working with a decidedly middling brain—not a well-oiled Ferrari like the ones my students seem to possess. Number two, I am of British origin. My accent in Hebrew is bad enough, but getting my mouth around the flat “a”s of Arabic is more than my palate can handle. The Gods of the online course point-blank refused to accept my recorded sentences, even though I’d double-checked their accuracy with GPT. Does this mean that nobody will ever understand me? I’m going to need a real Arabic-speaking human to help me get over this. Number three, I’m lazy. I’ll learn the words like sita (savta—grandma in Hebrew), akhel (ochel—food), and bint (bat—daughter), because they’re so similar to Hebrew—but when it comes to constructing sentences, I balk like an untrained filly.

I tried learning the letters, but unlike Hebrew, Arabic is written in a connected script. Knowing the letters on their own doesn’t mean I can recognize them when they’re joined together in a word. So, in the meantime, I remain illiterate.

It’s one step forward and two steps back, but I refuse to back down. The PD course has now closed—it was only three months. Who can chatter away in Arabic after three months? I’m looking into classes in the area, but the hours don’t work. And of course, this time I’ll have to pay out of my own pocket, which is a real deterrent.

Learning English online is a breeze. Why, the entire internet is in English! But Palestinian Arabic? Firstly, it’s not the same as Egyptian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Syrian, Moroccan, Tunisian, or any other Arabic. When I tried my Arabic on the Egyptian driver in Sinai, he laughed. Even in Israel, not all Arabs understand each other. Do not expect a Palestinian from Hebron to be able to communicate with a Bedouin from Beer Sheva, even if they are geographically close.

Finding good sources with the right Arabic dialect isn’t easy. There is an Arabic national radio station. I tried it. Couldn’t understand a word except “new” when the ads came along.

I had a genius idea: learn Palestinian Arabic through Fauda. The problem is that it’s full of words I don’t need—kidnap, kill, smuggle, trap, bomb, weapons. Not exactly the impression I’m going for.

My stepson’s wife (maybe there is a word for this familial connection in Arabic, but it doesn’t exist in English) did a course in Arabic, so whenever we meet, we compare notes. She recommended watching a series called Sorry for the Question, which is very popular in Israel and actually has a few episodes where Arab Israelis are interviewed. But once again, the subject matter doesn’t provide me with a rich vocabulary for conversations at the gas station. One episode was focused on people who had lost loved ones due to sectarian and family violence. I got so depressed with the tearful testimonies that I quickly turned to another episode. This one was parents of kids with special needs. Not really much of an improvement. I really have enough to get depressed about, thank you very much.

I just want to be able to order extra laffa in the restaurant my parents frequent in Ein Rafa, and talk to random strangers about where I live, my family, job, and hobbies. Is that too much to ask?

And then I did a YouTube search in Hebrew and struck gold, finally! An entire playlist with stories in Palestinian Arabic. The voice sounded natural—not even a whiff of AI. This is what I need. The first story was about Leila Al Hamra. I heard the word hamra many times, and it finally clicked that I did indeed know the word. It meant “red.” I was listening to Little Red Riding Hood in Palestinian Arabic! I was so excited I almost fell off my chair. The best thing of all was that I actually understood more than 50% of the text—once I slowed it down to 65% speed. I realized that words like basket, wolf, stomach, and hunter were all very similar to Hebrew.

Little Red Riding Hood in Palestinian Arabic

NotebookLM transcribed the story into phonetics and Gemini walked me through a lesson, encouraging me on my brilliance every step of the way. And now I know how to say “once upon a time” and “from now on.”

I’m not sure how much all of this will help me order a coffee at the gas station, unless I want to warn them about a big bad wolf in the area. But at least I’m gaining confidence. I’m not sure if I will ever be able to open my mouth and have the Arabs I interact with truly understand me, even if I ever deign to produce a full sentence.

But surely, if I can speak a few words of their language, greet them properly, and say, “I’m fine, praise Allah,” they’ll smile in delighted surprise—and for a moment, I’ll feel that the world, even if it isn’t a better place, is at least one where we occasionally understand each other.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)