well I think it is funny trying to explain American or whatever expressions to your Foreign SO.. My husband is always like.. "What is this??!"

We've actually started a notebook

SO far I've had to explain....

"Knock it off"

"Getting Ripped off"

"Stop being fresh! " I actually had a hard time explain what "Fresh" means

My father always tells ppl "take it easy" when he's saying goodbye. So the first time Moh met him when we were saying our goodbyes my dad tells him, "take it easy". We got in the car and Moh says, what does that mean, take it easy? He was baffled. I told him it was kinda like, "take care".

"so hungry I could eat a horse" - does NOT mean I eat horse.


"wicked" - good, but not just good, wicked good. lol

"shut up" - you don't say!

Once, my hubby and I got into it small argument over the phone, and I said something to him that he wasn't very pleased with. The next day he told me, "Honey, really that said make me very angry, why you said that?". My reply was "To wake you up" He said, "Oh, no honey, I was not asleep when you said that, I was walking home from the cafe' internet."
I tried to explain that it meant for him to really think about what I had said, but I don't know if he ever "got it".
Doodle, I so hope this is not the camel I rode in Petra!

the expression "Whatever" makes him nuts.. he always like.. This whatever.. I hate this Whatever.. What is this..

hahaa.. too bad.. its DEEPLY embedded growing up in the 80's



hahaa.. I have no problem telling my husband "Oskote!!!" ..lol.. he's like.. "eh? shut uP (with a heavy P) huh? Mesh."

how can you tell that's your camel? lol. I don't even remember where I got him from. He just looks how I feel today though. Lack of sleep, bored, unimpressed with life, etc.

Mine picked up a new one... "what's shakin' bakin' " I soooooo hate it and asked him to stop saying it.
He came home one day and said .. what does supman mean .. I said.."supman"???? he said "yeah when i say hi to somebody they say hi, sup man"

I had to explain "load of crap", "Piece of s###" , "she/he's hot" , "cool" , "wicked" , "nifty" , "awesome" (pronounced as owwwwsum by hubby).... too many to list. I just love that.

Whatever and anyways back fires on you once they get used to saying it. Although Moh says it he admits that he doesn't like it said to him (unless it's done jokingly).

The word "freakin." I say it way to much and so do my kids. Khallid had no clue what we were saying when we said this

"by the way" is one I've gotten from Amed. It's also kind of tricky to explain, too! But, now he says it all the time, and I still don't think he knows what it means.

The other is "frickin." My mom was joking around and said it the other day, and he latched onto it like a little kid. "What this mean? Frickin?" Now everything's "frickin" this and "frickin" that.

Now I tell my mom it's her fault, because she started it!

**** Edited to add: lol Aymerlu, we think alike!

"Supman" just made me giggle.

Over the past couple of years, we've hit on a few funny ones.

In the early days, he used to blush whenever people would bid farewell by saying "have a good one." He thought that 'having a good one' sounded somewhat sexual.

Then came our showdown over Wal-Mart. I typically avoid the place, but he found it amazing. So when he asked what was wrong with Wal-Mart, I explained by offhandedly saying that some of their business practices seemed "shitty" and "shady" to me. Thus Wal-Mart became (and remains) "the Shitty Place."

Third, he seemed to think that "umm" is as weird as "yanni" sounds to me.

And, most recently (as his English continues to improve), I'm constantly amused by his use of the word "until." In my mind, "until" is always somehow linked to a negation (as in "I *didn't* go to bed until 3am" or "please *don't* water the plants until Saturday). Meanwhile, for him, until is infinitely more useful...

I came to work until 9am (him) = I *didn't* come to work until 9am (me)

Do we have any linguistics or ESL people here? Anyone who could enlighten me on how to better explain the strange intricacies of until...?



Miss this forum. If I could be online more, I'd post more. Best wishes to everyone,

E

i think abdou has watched too many music videos because i had to explain to him that the "N word" wasn't something people normally say other than black people to each other!!!

hahaa.. I had to stop my husband from saying that the other day.. He didnt know it was a bad word. And of course we are driving around Dudley(bostons peoples) when he starts saying it - of course with the windows down

I have to see if my husband even knows that word. I don't think he does though since he doesn't listen to rap. He's more of a heavy metal guy.

This is a cute thread! Brings back a lot of smiling memories. My favorites: one day i said to moh, you will get glad in the same pants you got mad in! so had to explain that one! Now he loves to say it to me!! Or the time I told him if he didnt stop teasing me I was going to thump him on the head and give him a nuckle sandwich, jokingly of course. so had to explain that one too! One more, i said nothing new in that department, (meaning the same old thing), so again tried to explain that one. There have truely been many funny times like this. The small moments that make each day so special!

We went through that, too. Only it was, "what's kickin chicken?" It was just as annoying.

I love how my husband says "okie dokie panokie" now. lol it's so cute with that thick arabic accent.

We listen to different songs and some have that word in them. Now, DH's little brother says it all the time!

Oh my goodness..the "N" word...that one has been a total hoot!! ("hoot" was also one I had to explain)
When we first went out and saw someone of that fashion, my husband said out loud "is that a N" I thought I was gonna die! I said never ever ever say that word ever ever ever!!! lol ... Now he'll say it , laugh , and back away really quick coz I always smack him on the arm/shoulder when he says it. (not smack hard, I promise! )

I don't know if this will help you, but....

I always think of the word until to be a conditional word. One action starts/stops when another action begins/ends. Examples: Rub my head until I go to sleep. --- once I sleep, you can stop rubbing my head. Don't leave work until you finish cleaning. ---- When the cleaning is finished, you can leave.

In arabic until has two meanings. It can mean until or "even" as in, even a little child would know the answer to that. So, it can still be confusing on a whole 'nother level.

But in arabic, until = le7ad or 7ata. لحد حتي

I hope either of those can help you guys.

This thread is the cutest thing I've ever read . My fiance already knows most of my sayings it's no fun.

Oh, I missed out mostly on when Ramy was here the first time and had to learn all these things...sometimes I still catch him though.

hmm...I've had to explain the word "hectic."

one time I was typing an email to my mom and strung together kindasortanotreally, but I was reading aloud as I was typing and Ramy picked up on it right away and started saying it all the time. But we got sickening with it where he would say one word and I would say the other...yeah....nevermind.

I remember one of the first things he ever said to me, which still amuses me to this day...

Him: "Your name is Jen, right?"
Me: "No, it's Megan."
Him: "Oh, Megan. That's a pretty name. Like Volkswagon."



(A year later he later told me he said it because my t-shirt had pictures of Volkswagon bugs on it that said "Love Bug")

My youngest daughter's name is Megan.

I had to warn my husband about the same thing. I'm fairly sure he learned this word from movies. He knew it was a "bad" word without me telling him but he didn't realize just how bad it is. There are words in Arabic (as I'm sure most of you know) that have a similar meaning.

Megans rock

(good luck!!!! I know I keep telling you this but I can't help it )

My daughter's name is Megan too!! When I was in Egypt Sam showed me a car sold there by Renault called Megan. A very nice sports car. My daughter thought that was cool there was a car with her name.

WOW! Most of my friends are African American and we do not call each other the 'N word'-FYI

rofl I was telling my husband about the "n" word and thankfully he knows enough that it's a bad word and would never use it anyways, BUT, when I said, "you know that's a bad word, right?" he said, "yes of course donnot worry I have been working on my phrases....................."


then he says something like Go NINJAS!!!!



I"m like, what the heck was THAT??? And he said it was from the ninja turtles.

I have NO idea what he's talking about. lol

Yay! yet another Megan in the world I have a semi-distant cousin with the same name as me (well, different middle name, but same initials...)

Oh...no wonder Ramy compared my name to a car!!! I want to see this now....next time I'm in Egypt...lol


In other news...
I've had some fun explaining internet/chat lingo to Ramy...especially because some of my friends have a habit of saying LOL out loud. They did it so much that my mom and I started saying it out loud too...and Ramy as well...(he's really not a computer person and never has been....)

I said, "Know what I mean, jellybean?" to Jamal one time. It stuck. Now, if I'm trying to explain something serious and I say, "You know what I mean?" I get a nod, a grin, and a "Jellybean!"

My sister taught him, "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream," so now he will say he wants some I scream you scream.

I remember telling myself the other day that we needed to go over the difference between union and onion, but I don't remember the context.

As his English vocabulary grows, though, I see more and more of that poetic talk that's so prized in Arabic coming out in his English. Nice.

Hmmm...we just heard something scratching around in or under the house, maybe on the ductwork. I woke him up from a sound sleep. My "You know what I mean?" was not met with a "Jellybean" this time.

One night my husband and i were talking in Egypt. And i was so taken by him cus he is sooooooo sweeeeet! I said "baby you blow me away" He didnt know what i ment. And another time i asked him if he was grumpy? And he thought i just insaulted him

I just thought of another one. When I say "You can do it" or "I can do it" he always responds with "I can help" (like the Home Depot commercials)!!
oh, and you know the song "jitterbug" where it says "wake me up before you go go"? yeah.. he says "before you/we/I go go" after just about everything. such as.. ... "I need a drink......before I go go" or ... "want to go to bed?....before we go go".. It's quite funny

Oh this is hilarious! Some words I've explained dork, moron, knock you out oh man there are a ton.
He really had a hard time understanding sarcasm which was devestating as both my sister and I (we were around each other a lot) are soooooooo sarcastic. So she would say, "Yea I reallly like this guy" and I would be like "oh yea i bet you do he's such a loser" He would think I was being so mean to her. I wish I could think of more but those are a few things. For awhile it felt like I was explaining everything - now he speaks better English and the most frustrating thing is when I'm watching TV or the news and he tunes out and then reverts to "Oh what is going on" as in retell me the whole darn story!

mmmmmmmmmmmhmmmmmmmmmm .. I know what ya mean about sarcasm. We get into some arguments over that. He has a really hard time knowing when I'm being sarcastic and when I'm not. We're workin' on it though.

LOL! I am always sarcastic! The other day my husband asked me why I answered him with a question. He said "are you ready to go?" I looked at him and said "Do I look like I'm ready to go?" (I obvisouly was not ready) He said I do this a lot and now he mentioned it....I do! I think I've done better the last few days.

Amal! How ya doing girl?

Ramy and I are currently tracking an the packet of paperwork I sent him this week via DHL (we both have email notifications and are stalking it, lol)

...well, his email today about it cracked me up!

"i read that thing about the DHL thing and it is in Egyp and that it is all in my crib bab."

oh that is too cute though...too too cute!!!

hahaha I do the same thing lol!! The difference though is that when I say it, the hubster freezes mid motion and stares at me like I've said something totally rude until I remind him that it is sarcasm and isn't intended to be rude.. just playful.

Amy, I'm doing as good as can be expected given my conditions. I wish we could have gotten together again before I moved. I hope your family is doing ok My mobile# is still the same so feel free to call me.

hehe and there's another one... if I say "I want to/I like to" he will cut me off and say "move it move it" (like the song in the movie "Madagascar") Then he'll dance around "semi-dabkaing" and singing "i like to move it move it-- we like to move it move it"....

How about "I need a haircut because my hair is getting to tall" lol

Hehehe...Moh says "tall" instead of "long", too. He also says "big" instead of "old".

Speaking of hair...you know what the advantage of having a balding husband is? You get to shave his head for him. God I love doing that! I'm such a dork.

One time Hicham and I were talking about something and I don't even remember what it was now...but I told him...

"Quit blowing smoke up my azz".

I swear he did like a double take and said "What???" "I'm not doing THAT!!!!"

I fell in the floor laughing on that one! He can't ever remember how to say that exactly right so now he just will say "Quit blowing smoke!"

I DO THAT TOO!!! hehehe... Mine gets feet and inches confused. When we were trying to get a truck rented for our big move, he kept telling the ppl he needed 17 inches of room instead of 17 feet. It was quite humorous!

Are you a dork like me who gets a tremendous thrill out of shaving your husband's head? He laughs at me because I light up when I have the shaver in my hand. I'm doing it tonight as a matter of fact!

Anyone tried to explain...grouch.....or spoiled?

LOL yes. I told Moh one day he was grouchy he asked what it meant. I told him it meant "crabby"...he asked what that meant, too. I finally just said, you seem to be in a bad mood. He gets it now.

and for spoiled i finally compared him to his baby neice always getting her way or she will cry,,

When explaining "ill/grouchy/moody (not you, kara)/cranky/etc", my husband translated this into "bad humour" due to his British English education. hehehee When he says good humour or bad humour I always think about the song from the Good Humor commercial! I'm the Good Humor Man...

Hey, has anybody tried to explain hippies? That was one explanation I got stuck on. I don't know if there is a word in Arabic or not. I went through the whole explanation starting with 1950's mentality to the 1970's and tried to give him an idea of what hippy means. It didn't work.

why yes, as a matter of fact, I am! Nothing thrills me more than shaving his head! I dunno why... oddly enough, he loves it too. He also likes for me to pluck his white hairs (shaibs) from his mustache, beard, and head... That is my favorite thing to do...



There is a word for it ... at first he thought I meant bedouin.... but the more I explained it , he got it.... I'll have to ask him what their word was for it...