From the Qasid Institute. “Marhaba” or “Hello.” It’s time to learn a little Arabic.

When travelling to a foreign country it’s always a good idea to learn some basic words and phrases in the national language. I always start by learning the words for “hello,” “please,” “thank you,” and the words for the foods I am allergic to.

While many people in Amman speak English, knowing a few words in Arabic will go a long way for us. Arabic is also a very useful language. It is spoken by over 220 million people around the world.

Unlike English, words in Arabic are written in lines from right to left. If you see someone reading a book in Arabic, it may look like they started at the end! However, numbers are written from left to right, just like in English.

Arabic uses a different alphabet than English, so reading Arabic is very difficult. Most signs in Jordan use both the Arabic and the Roman alphabet. The Roman alphabet is the one we use in English. By using both alphabets people from all over can read these signs. Taking a word in one alphabet and spelling it like it sounds in another alphabet is called transcription. While I can’t read Arabic in actual Arabic script, I do my best to jot down what they sound like. As we drove, we noticed street signs for the same place typically had 2 or 3 different English spellings. Each was right, since when you said the word out loud, it sounded like proper Arabic. For example, when we drove to Wadi Rum, we saw it spelled Wadi Rmm and Wadi Ru’um as well.

More: Intro to Islam.

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