Songs and Language

As usual, I went out this evening after my Mark class with a few of my friends from seminary to a local coffee shop(it's a little bit like the coffee shop for men only in Egypt where they smoke shisha and play dominoes till 2 in the morning). It's always a good way to chill out after a long day at class. The conversations with this group of friends can get rather interesting as we discuss things that we find interesting (or share our friend's frustrations). ;)

This evening, somehow our conversation was about the translating words into Greek. One of my friends told us of how he translated some simple songs from English to Greek (like 'I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart') as part of his learning Greek during his time. There were some further attempts to translate other songs and it turned out to be quite fun and hilarious. As they were attempting to translate the songs (I realised my Greek is super rusty already. Interestingly enough most of the words that first came to mind was Arabic. :p), I had the thought that songs are really a good way to practice one's language. My friend was telling me that as you translate the songs, you remember the language better... How true...

It also brought to mind how much I enjoyed learning Arabic through songs. I remember in the last few classes, my Arabic teacher played some contemporary beautiful Arabic songs. One of the songs was entitled 'Shadi' by Fairuz (Arabic: فيروز‎, also spelled Fairouz or Fayrouz). It was a rather poignant song but the beauty of the language came through as a story is told of a girl's memory of her childhood friend Shadi in the hills of Lebanon. I can't remember the title of the other Arabic song that I really liked. It was a rather witty and humourous(and sardonic) in nature as it described life in Egypt. My teacher informed me that the Egyptians liked it a lot and it was played over the radio a lot last year during Ramadan period. I learnt quite a few local slangs through that song and used it to use on my pastor in Cairo. It was quite fun.

Am now learning another language this semester - Hebrew. My Hebrew lecturer was just telling us that he'll teach us some songs that our class can sing for the passover feast that we'll be celebrating in our seminary in two weeks time. Am looking forward to it. :)