Last week (I wrote this over the weekend and by the time you read it, it will be Monday, so I guess I mean the week before last week) I attended my first ever formal Urdu class. It was fantastic and now I annoy all my friends and family by wanting to talk about Urdu and Urdu class every single waking moment of every day.
I had signed up weeks ago, and fretted in the meantime. I have tried to review a bit in the weeks before but never found the time. There once was a time when I knew the whole Urdu alphabet. On my first trip to Pakistan I even read the names 'Bilal' off the back of a rickshaw and 'Mah Rose' on the sign at the beauty parlor. That was the end of my Urdu adventures for almost five years though, as life got busy and I never had time during law school to continue my solo efforts to tackle the Urdu language. I was really most nervous about the writing. In the seven years of my marriage I have picked up a fair ammount of spoken Urdu purely through osmosis and three Pakistan vacations worth of immersion. I have a good sized vocabulary and a lot of pre-memorized full sentences. LuckyFatima told me once I even have an allright Urdu accent, so that's nice. I thought that would give me a leg up in class and partially make up for the disadvantage in the writing part. I could spend less time memorizing the vocabulary words I mostly already knew and more time trying to get the writing and reading down. That was the plan, anyway.
So then came class day. I had to leave work a bit early and walk to class. It works out pretty well that my classes are only about 10 blocks from my job. Back when I was unemployed, it seemed like more of a hassle to have to get downtown to take these classes but now that I'm working, I'm nearby at those times. I walked to class, checked in at their registration desk, and was told to wait in a room "upstairs at the end of the hall." When I walked in the room there were three people - two caucasian women and a desi guy. I sat down, starting filling out a questionaire given to me by the registration desk, and started introducing myself. Turns out the two white ladies - married to Pakistani men! Hurrah!
More people started coming into the room. Many of them were for the French class and the French instructor came soon after and kicked us out ("Just like colonialism, all over again," someone joked later) so we had to wait in the hallway. I joke "Well, who here expected the Urdu class to start on time anyway!" Turns out our teacher was already in another class, teaching Hindi, and they'd just run over a bit. The director of the language school came by to get them up and moving and as the Hindi students straggled out, and we Urdu students straggled in, I got to see my new Urdu teacher for the first time. And you'll never guess who it is. Mr. Youtube Urdu sensation himself!
I was so shocked - I'd tried to research who the past instructors for the class were and he was not among my researched possibilities, nor did I think he taught language, from what little I knew about him - that I went right to him and said "Hello! My husband stood talking in the back of a hotel conference room with you for more than an hour a few months ago!" I'm not sure what he must have thought about me then, but he smiled nicely at me at least. Class went well. Until the writing/reading part. He was only going over the first five letters of the alphabet but I still couldn't quite keep up. At the end of the 90 minute class, he had everyone try and read tiny starter words and everyone else at least tried, or did in fact read them. I was the only one who stared blankly at my page and finally, defeatedly, said "I can't even begin..." At the end of class, as we were walking out, he said "Now was your husband the actor...?" and I said "Oh! No, he's a computer geek guy." Mian tells me I should have told him about the 0% of his Urdu comment, as that was something they had talked about. But I think I'll keep that emotional scar to myself for now.
During the rest of the week and weekend, I practiced and studied as much as time would allow and by Monday morning, on the metro ride to work, I was able to read very small words. More than just Bilal and Ma Rose! On Tuesday morning, my teacher emailed all the students from Urdu 1 that those of us who felt more comfortable with the script might want to try our hands at Urdu 2 instead. He'd already worked it out with the school's director that we could try one class of Urdu 2 free of obligation, and I decided to try it out. That's how I ended up going to two different Urdu classes this week, Urdu 1 on one night and Urdu 2 two nights later. I actually hemmed and hawed about it for a little bit just because one of those Gori Wives from Urdu 1 had seemed really likeable, but luckily, she also decided to try out Urdu 2, and she's decided to stay in the second level class, as have I.
I still feel like I have a lot of catching up to do in the reading and writing department, but as I told the professor when I was asking his opinion on which class was right for me, I did once have these letters memorized and it might just be a matter of days before they dig themselves out of the recesses of my brain. And I also live as a small minority in a house full of native Urdu speakers, all willing to help me brush up on my language skills. The Professor, I think we'll call him Ustad-ji, said that he thought I might have to spend a week doing catch-up work, but that he thought the Urdu 1 class would keep me behind. With that pat on the back, I decided on Urdu 2. The only sad part is thinking that after these short weeks of Urdu 2, there's no Urdu 3 - that will be it for my language instruction? Surely I won't be fluent or even proficient by then?!
We shall see, I guess. It's already Week 3 out of a ten week class. Of course, just like in real life, this will probably be ALL I talk about here now.
I had signed up weeks ago, and fretted in the meantime. I have tried to review a bit in the weeks before but never found the time. There once was a time when I knew the whole Urdu alphabet. On my first trip to Pakistan I even read the names 'Bilal' off the back of a rickshaw and 'Mah Rose' on the sign at the beauty parlor. That was the end of my Urdu adventures for almost five years though, as life got busy and I never had time during law school to continue my solo efforts to tackle the Urdu language. I was really most nervous about the writing. In the seven years of my marriage I have picked up a fair ammount of spoken Urdu purely through osmosis and three Pakistan vacations worth of immersion. I have a good sized vocabulary and a lot of pre-memorized full sentences. LuckyFatima told me once I even have an allright Urdu accent, so that's nice. I thought that would give me a leg up in class and partially make up for the disadvantage in the writing part. I could spend less time memorizing the vocabulary words I mostly already knew and more time trying to get the writing and reading down. That was the plan, anyway.
So then came class day. I had to leave work a bit early and walk to class. It works out pretty well that my classes are only about 10 blocks from my job. Back when I was unemployed, it seemed like more of a hassle to have to get downtown to take these classes but now that I'm working, I'm nearby at those times. I walked to class, checked in at their registration desk, and was told to wait in a room "upstairs at the end of the hall." When I walked in the room there were three people - two caucasian women and a desi guy. I sat down, starting filling out a questionaire given to me by the registration desk, and started introducing myself. Turns out the two white ladies - married to Pakistani men! Hurrah!
More people started coming into the room. Many of them were for the French class and the French instructor came soon after and kicked us out ("Just like colonialism, all over again," someone joked later) so we had to wait in the hallway. I joke "Well, who here expected the Urdu class to start on time anyway!" Turns out our teacher was already in another class, teaching Hindi, and they'd just run over a bit. The director of the language school came by to get them up and moving and as the Hindi students straggled out, and we Urdu students straggled in, I got to see my new Urdu teacher for the first time. And you'll never guess who it is. Mr. Youtube Urdu sensation himself!
I was so shocked - I'd tried to research who the past instructors for the class were and he was not among my researched possibilities, nor did I think he taught language, from what little I knew about him - that I went right to him and said "Hello! My husband stood talking in the back of a hotel conference room with you for more than an hour a few months ago!" I'm not sure what he must have thought about me then, but he smiled nicely at me at least. Class went well. Until the writing/reading part. He was only going over the first five letters of the alphabet but I still couldn't quite keep up. At the end of the 90 minute class, he had everyone try and read tiny starter words and everyone else at least tried, or did in fact read them. I was the only one who stared blankly at my page and finally, defeatedly, said "I can't even begin..." At the end of class, as we were walking out, he said "Now was your husband the actor...?" and I said "Oh! No, he's a computer geek guy." Mian tells me I should have told him about the 0% of his Urdu comment, as that was something they had talked about. But I think I'll keep that emotional scar to myself for now.
During the rest of the week and weekend, I practiced and studied as much as time would allow and by Monday morning, on the metro ride to work, I was able to read very small words. More than just Bilal and Ma Rose! On Tuesday morning, my teacher emailed all the students from Urdu 1 that those of us who felt more comfortable with the script might want to try our hands at Urdu 2 instead. He'd already worked it out with the school's director that we could try one class of Urdu 2 free of obligation, and I decided to try it out. That's how I ended up going to two different Urdu classes this week, Urdu 1 on one night and Urdu 2 two nights later. I actually hemmed and hawed about it for a little bit just because one of those Gori Wives from Urdu 1 had seemed really likeable, but luckily, she also decided to try out Urdu 2, and she's decided to stay in the second level class, as have I.
I still feel like I have a lot of catching up to do in the reading and writing department, but as I told the professor when I was asking his opinion on which class was right for me, I did once have these letters memorized and it might just be a matter of days before they dig themselves out of the recesses of my brain. And I also live as a small minority in a house full of native Urdu speakers, all willing to help me brush up on my language skills. The Professor, I think we'll call him Ustad-ji, said that he thought I might have to spend a week doing catch-up work, but that he thought the Urdu 1 class would keep me behind. With that pat on the back, I decided on Urdu 2. The only sad part is thinking that after these short weeks of Urdu 2, there's no Urdu 3 - that will be it for my language instruction? Surely I won't be fluent or even proficient by then?!
We shall see, I guess. It's already Week 3 out of a ten week class. Of course, just like in real life, this will probably be ALL I talk about here now.
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