Conversation Partner: Meeting #4

Thursday March 8, 2012

*Paul: Hello Mohanad. I am going home today and cannot meet you tonight. We can still meet on Sunday if you like.
**Mohanad: You are ready today, our appointment.
Paul: I had to go home today. Can we move it to Sunday?

TL;DR
3/11 - Tried to set up a meeting. No response.

*This text was sent in the early afternoon. I consider that fair warning, but I'll let you be the judge.
** This text was sent just before 7:00 when we usually meet. I don't think Mohanad understood my previous text.

Conversation Partner: Meeting #3

Previously Mohanad and I had scheduled to meet on Tuesday March 6th, 2012.

Tuesday March 6, 2012

Mohanad: I'm sorry, very busy day Wgat do you think on thursday
Paul: That is fine.

TL;DR
3/6 - I was stood up.

Conversation Partner: Meeting #2

My second conversation with Mohanad and Abdul went just as swimmingly as the first go around. We actually ended up sitting down for longer than an hour because time kind of got away from us. We were just having fun hanging out and I don't think any of us had homework due the next day.

Since we had met previously, the whole mood of the meeting was much more comfortable. There were no awkward introductions, no scoping each other out, no nothing. This allowed me to focus on more subtle things. The first thing I noticed was just how long Mohanad and Abdul's handshakes were. I don't know if that's just a cultural difference or whatever, but I thought it was funny. Essentially that's a really minor part of an interaction -- although the Neeley School of Business would probably tell you otherwise -- and I just found it interesting how something so simple could also be so briefly jarring in a social setting.

For the record, Mohanad and Abdul are super nice dudes. Again, I hadn't noticed it until our second meeting, but they really insisted on buying me coffee from Union Grounds. They almost didn't take no for an answer. I could tell they were really grateful for the chance to converse. It was really sad actually. At one point during our meeting, in this pure moment of profound juxtaposition, Abdul, with a wide smile spread across his face, told me how happy he was to talk with me -- "I want to learn English so bad. Sometimes I am awake before bed and I cry because I want to learn English, but I can't."

On a less serious note, we talked about more trivial matters. I asked them how they like their coffee. They both said black with a little bit of milk. I asked them about their day as well. They said they had gone to Chili's earlier for dinner, I believe for the first time, and they seemed to have enjoyed it. Mohanad and Abdul also spoke about how they had been trying to go to the Rec lately and get in shape. Their favorite sport is soccer, but when they go to the Rec they like to relax and play on the pool tables. I commented on their attire. They were both much better dressed since the last time I had met with them. Mohanad and Abdul were both sporting bright colored pastel polo shirts. They explained that when they first got here all their clothes were designed for much colder weather, so they had made a trip to the mall recently to get summer clothes. When I asked them about how classes were going they talked about how hard their tests were. Earlier they had to write an essay for a test about their stance on love and how it relates to marriage. It sounded really awful.

Once again, I found the most enjoyable part of our conversation to be hearing their thoughts on the English language from the perspective of new speakers. We discussed the significance of the phrase "What's up?" for an incredibly long time. I had to explain that it was just a slang greeting. When someone asks you "What's up?", it is not a matter of direction. No one cares what is physically above you. My simplest explanation for them was that it basically meant "How are you doing?". This launched us into a whole new area of problems with the English language. Mohanad and Abdul really had difficulties telling the difference between words that rhymed or had slightly different, subtle variations. Specifically, they did not understand why "How are you doing?" and "Where are you going?" meant two different things when "doing" and "going" sounded like practically the same word. Pronunciation remained an issue the whole night. I had to stop them a couple times to understand them when they were telling stories. It was pretty funny to hear them pronounce "elephant" and "eleven" in exactly the same way.

Mohanad and Abdul told me that they were in the United States because their father wanted them to learn English as quickly as possible so that they could be successful when they eventually move back home. They asked my advice on how they should best learn the language. I recommended that they watch the news regularly. I had previously heard that repeatedly watching television programming in a foreign language really helps. My best friend from high school swears that his foreign exchange student learned how to speak English just as much by watching the TV show Friends as she did in class. I also told them to join some organizations around the campus. I asked them if there were any extracurricular groups for ESL students or if they were interested in joining the Crew or something like that.

Eventually we grew tired and we had to wrap up our conversation. Overall though, our second meeting was a great success.

Conversation Partner: Meeting #1

On February 19th I met with my conversation partner by Union Grounds in the BLUU. Actually, I met with two conversation partners. Their names were Mohanad and Abdul, and they are two TCU students from Saudi Arabia who speak English as their second language. Mohanad and Abdul are twins. Just to give you some vague idea of what they look like, they both resemble that guy from Inception that you kinda sorta remember.

Yusuf from Inception

Okay. Onto the conversation. What did we converse about? Good question, Dear Reader. I shall proceed to inform you.

At first we talked about our home lives. Mohanad and Abdul are from Saudi Arabia. Their family is comprised of themselves, their parents, and their younger sisters. When I asked them if their sisters were planning on attending TCU at some point, they replied quite bluntly and hilariously that their sisters aren't as smart or good at school as they are - so probably not. I asked them if they had any pets back home. They said that they've had both dogs and cats in the past. They didn't seem to mind their dog, but objected to their cats because they always smelled awful.

I wondered where in Saudi Arabia I should go if I ever wanted to visit, and they listed the names of some marketplaces, famous streets, and impressive buildings (all in Arabic) that I can neither remember nor pronounce. I asked them about the Burj Khalifa and if they had seen it in Mission Impossible 4. They had not, but they did mention that they enjoyed Tom Cruise movies and continued to talk about Dubai for a little bit.

TFM

Then our conversation transitioned more towards America. I asked them what they thought of TCU and America in general. So far they give rave reviews. They both live in Samuelson, so they're not exactly slumming it as far as dorms go. Because it's their first semester at TCU they're rooming together, but after next semester they're both going to branch out and find American roommates so that they can improve their English.

We all agreed that TCU had tons of extremely cute girls. I found the contrast between their experiences here in America and back home in Saudi Arabia to be quite hilarious. They said it was shocking to them to see guys just walk up to a girl and tell her that she was beautiful. The audacity of these gentlemen was surprising, but even more so was the fact that the girls didn't seem to mind. They said that back home, such interaction would have been offensive and would have provoked a slap to the face.

While on the topic of women, both Mohanad and Abdul seemed to be unable to think of a particular word to describe their experience with girls at TCU. For about 5 minutes we played the most fun game of charades ever. They repeatedly alternated between making a lifting motion with both of their hands and sticking both hands out and shaking them in a dismissive manner. In order to assist me, Mohanad pulled out his BlackBerry which had a translator app on it. He typed away for a bit then showed me his phone. It said "ego". I LOL'd -- the word they were looking for was "snobby". I explained what snobby meant to me and how to use it in a sentence. After that we all had a good laugh.

Derp

Then I asked Mohanad and Abdul what the most difficult part of learning English was. I think they both agreed that it was the nonsensical nature of differences in spelling and pronunciation. They were frustrated with letter combinations like ph which produced an "f" sound, ti which produces a "sh" sound in -tion words, and th which makes a sound unlike "t" or "h" separately. Additionally, they were dumbfounded by the fact that the word "water" -- spelled with a t, mind you -- is pronounced "wah-dur". When they asked me why the letter t made a "d" sound, I had no response. Now I was dumbfounded as well. Their responses really made me take a step back and consider how stupid the English language is as well as how much I take my conversation skill for granted.

At this point we had been talking for about an hour, so we decided to pack things up. I noticed Mohanad had some Beats headphones. I asked him what type of music he listened to. He said he mostly listened to Saudi Arabian music because American music was generally too fast-paced for him. At first I thought he meant American music was too uptempo, but obviously he meant that he couldn't understand all the lyrics at once. However, he didn't completely ignore American music. Mohanad has a very eclectic music taste. He listens to Justin Bieber, Bob Marley, and Akon (which he initially pronounced "econ").

Alright. That's pretty much it for our first meeting. I hope there were enough movie references and pictures to keep you interested the whole way through.

EMERGENCY CUTENESS BELOW