My Mudir for the SOS village told me a joke that I wanted to share.

One difference between Arabic/Tashleheet and English is that in English our salutations are questions :

how are you? how's your family? are you alright?

For them, its more like declarative with no really questions or answers.

Eh! Addi! Tarsa! La bas! Bixihir! Kif dayr! thenna! mitanit! hamdullah! hamdullah laybarfik!

Therefore you can pick and choose and just shout out the ones you feel like saying at that moment, and noone waiting to hear a certain response. That's fun because it means you dont have to pause, but just say 8 or 9 of them and they're talking simultaneously with you, saying their eight or nine, and its only awkward if you look at them and listen like you're expecting some kind of response. So ideally, you get two people doing this at the same time, full force, not listening to each other because listening is not the point!

Person one: Eh! Addi! Tarsa! La bas! Bixihir! Kif Tarsa! La bas! Bixihir!dayr! thenna! mitanit! hamdullah! hamdullah laybarfik!

Person two: Eh! Said! Tarsa! thenna! mitanit! hamdullah! hamdullah laybarfik! La bas! Bixihir! Kif dayr! thenna! mitanit! hamdullah! hamdullah laybarfik!

Simultaneously.

But the joke comes in when a person learns English the dialogue method, without anyone explaining what the words literally mean. So, two kids talking, one says : 'how are you' is like 'bixihir', kif kif. 'Mitanit' is like 'ca va?'

So the joke is, a Moroccan student is trying to speak English, and it's something like this:

A: Hello?

M: Hello how are you

A: Im fine. And you?

M: Im fine. And you!

A: Im fine.

M: And you!

: p