Hi everyone, my name is Michele and I'm The Intrepid Guide. Now, this is a place where
I talk about my two favourite things in the world which are languages and travel.
So, today, I'm actually going to share with you a personal challenge of mine that I've set
myself for the end of this year. So, the start of this year, I actually booked a trip to
probably one of the top three things on my bucket list of places that I wanted to go
to in the world. Now, I've actually chosen to go to Egypt. Egypt has been a dream of
mine ever since I was about nine years old. That passion started when my mum's brother,
so my uncle, actually gave my mum a beautiful hieroglyphics print that he had brought back
from when he visited Cairo. It was so beautiful. She had it framed and she put it outside my
bedroom door and every time I saw it, I was like "Wow, this is amazing! What is the story
with these hieroglyphics?". Then I started to see all these Hollywood blockbuster movies
set back in the 1950s. Seeing Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor and seeing The Ten Commandments.
The more recently it was The Mummy. This passion just stuck with me and I just thought, you
know, I really have to get to Egypt. I've got to see what this "mystical land" is all
about. But this is like tracing back to one of the oldest most advanced civilisations
that we've ever known. This place has really stuck with me and I thought I really want
to go there, but for whatever reason, I never booked a trip. I've been travelling the world
for about 10 years now and I never made it a priority. But I thought, nuh, this year,
I'm going. So I booked a trip for nine days in Egypt. I'm going there the end of this year.
Because languages have been such a passion of mine throughout the years I thought you
know what, I want to try and make an effort to learn Arabic. I know it's going to be a
challenge because, well, I'll have to learn a completely different alphabet, different
scripture all together and the vocabulary is quite different to the languages I've already
learned. So I've learned French, a bit of Afrikaans, and I speak Italian fluently. But
Arabic is a totally different ballgame. So, I thought, right "How am I going to learn
this language?" So what I've done is that I've teamed up with Rosetta Stone. The reason
why I've chosen Rosetta Stone is that they don't follow the traditional techniques of
learning a language. So I thought, right, this is probably going to be the right choice
for me and I'm going to set myself the challenge of being able to communicate on some basic level.
I'm going to see how far I get with this. My goal is to be able to at least say
the pleasantries, order food, try and have some sort of banter with the locals because
that where the real connection happens and that's what makes your travels special is
when you get to connect with people. You might see a beautiful building or a beautiful lake
or a beautiful scenery but it's the connections you have with the people along the way.
I recently experienced the otherside of that where I haven't been able to speak the language at all.
I'm not going to name places because I actually went back to the same country the
following week and I had a great experience. But the problem there was that I didn't speak
the language and everyone said, "Oh no, you don't have to worry about speaking the language,
everyone speaks English, you'll be fine!" But slap on the hand for not taking more initiative
and trying to learn a few phrases before going. I noticed that that particular trip I just
had the worst experience I've ever had and I've never had that before. I thought, "Right,
you know what I need to brush up on my skills and try to learn a few phrases like "Hello", "Thank you",
"Goodbye", "How are you?", "May I have...?" and all these sorts of things. It was funny because I actually
went back to the same country but a different city a week later and I had a totally different experience.
I just goes to show the power of language. That's what I'm hoping for with Arabic.
Even though I will be on a tour I do hope that I'll be able to exchange some
sort of informal conversation. Now I really love these because I'm quite happy to own
up the fact that my pronunciation is rubbish at times, that I'll stumble through a few
sentences, or that I'll totally forget because in the pressure of the moment you do forget.
But, you know, people always appreciate the effort and they'll smile at you and they're
like "No, no, no, it's ok". Then they'll slow down and they annunciate and they'll help
you through it. I really hope that I'll be able to have those connections with people.
We'll also be staying on a Felucca which is a typical Egyptian boats that cruise along
the Nile. I know that we'll have an Egyptian cook so I'm just hoping that I'll be able
to catch up with him or her and have some sort of exchange and maybe learn a few words
while I'm there. The idea is that when I'm using Rosetta Stone is that I'm going to be
learning some vocabulary and also getting my ear used to listening to the sound of the
Arabic language. It's not something that I come across everyday like you might watch
movies where they're speaking in French or Italian or whatever. I haven't seen any Arabic
movies so that's something I'm going to source out as well. Another thing I want to do is
to pick up on some Arabic music, some modern dance music or even traditional music and
get my ear used to hearing it and picking up on some common sounds and even the sentence
structure as well. I've actually started learning Arabic already. Now, I'm in the very early
days but I've actually started playing around with the Rosetta Stone app. What's great about
the app is that I can use it while I'm commuting to work. I've got it on my iPad, my iPhone,
and my laptop. So I'll basically be exchanging through these three devices. I'm probably
going to use the laptop obviously when I'm at home when I'm in a bit more of a chilled environment, I'm
going to use my phone when I'm commuting and then my iPad sort of in between. What I've
noticed about the app is that you can download the lessons and you can use them later. That's
going to be convenient when I'm on the Underground in London in the Tube and there is no Internet
connection. One of the things I've noticed so far with the app is that it's a completely
different method to what I've experienced before with learning languages. So, I'm really
going to embrace this. It's quite foreign to what I'm used to. Now what I'm used to is
sitting in a classroom, listening to a teacher, writing things on the board, that's been like
the standard experience that I've had. With using Rosetta Stone it's going to be very
much on me to pay attention to what I'm hearing on the app. One of the things I've noticed
with the Rosetta Stone app is that everything is going be in the language that you're learning.
So, in my case, it's going to be all in Arabic. There are no translations in English, it's
all by the sound and the voice recognition that you can turn on as well, and the images.
The images do the explaining for you. So you hear the sound and you match it to the image
and that's how you learn. So that's going to be like a form of repetition and then it
goes through different units where you're learning the vocab, the grammar. I haven't
got that far yet but as I scroll through the menu I can see that all those things await me.
At first, it was a bit daunting because I had my own expectations of what it was going
to be. But after I played around with it for about ten minutes I was like "ah huh, now
I get it!" and I sort of got into the flow. I've learnt a few words so far, I'm a bit
nervous about the pronunciation. I've learned things like 'waladon' which is 'boy', 'benton'
which is 'girl', 'marhaban' which is 'Hello', 'Shukran' which is 'thank you'. Why am I waving?
But, yeah, it's 'thank you'. These are the sorts of things I'm starting to pick up. It's
interesting that as I'm going around the house orf whatever I'm starting to say these words
in my head and I'll feel the need to vocalise them. So, yeah. it's kind of working already
which has kind of suprised me because I was a bit daunted at the task initially because
all the onus is on me to pay attention and connect all the dots with the images and what
I'm hearing. So, that is the challenge. Now, I've given myself, it's now September I've
given myself up until December which is when I travel. So I'm going to see how I go with
the language. But I'm going to be posting updates every two weeks or so, so make sure
subscribe to my channel, follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. I'm going to link all
the down below in the description. I'm going to be sharing with you along the way so some
of the more informal outtakes I guess. To just let you guys know of any struggles I'm
having or any funny things I'm learning because I totally love idioms, you guys know how much
I love my expressions. So, I'm going definitely be searching those out and share a few with
you guys. Please also let me know if you're learning a language. If you do want to learn
a language, then why not try Rosetta Stone. They've actually given me a promo code that
I've linked to in the description below and you can share with me your experience.
So maybe you want to ask a question in general about language learning. I'd love to hear it.
So please let me know. It's my favourite thing in the world to talk about, that and
travel and combining the two which is the ultimate. So in the lead up to taking this
challenge I've decided to have a little bit of a dabble around and to find out a bit more
about the Arabic language. Now I don't know too much just yet, but I do know that it has
three different types of Arabic that are spoken. There's the MSA, the Modern Standard Arabic,
there's the Arabic of the Koran and there's the Classical Arabic. Well, actually that's
what they're both called. So, the Koran and the Classical Arabic is what they're known
as and then there's different forms of the dialect, the Arabic dialect, which is spoken
in all the different Arabic speaking countries. There are about 420 million people that speak
Arabic now that's spread across both countries that have Arabic as an official or unofficial
language and just where it's generally spoken. One of the things I also found out, which
is kind of perfect for my first language challenge that I'm giving out to the world. So if you
take for word 'Arabic' and you cut it down to 'Arab', it actually means 'nomad' which
is quite fitting considering nomadic tribes travelled around the Arabian desert. Hence
the name. I hope you guys enjoy my challenge that I'm setting for myself. I'm putting myself
out on a limb. I really hope I succeed. But the perfectionist and the crazy workaholic
that I am, I'm sure I'll do ok. It's just a matter how much I'm able to learn by the
time I get to Egypt in December. So the countdown is on! So please subscribe to my channel below.
Follow me on Instragram, Twitter and Facebook. I'm going to be updating there as well. And
please send me in your questions, your comments. I'd love to hear from you. I need your support.
So please help me out. Thank you so much guys. Speak to you soon. Bye!