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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Everybody has a car...

... but my grandpa has a donkey...
- Children's Arabic song (supposedly)

Unemployment reading project #2 (after Foucault's History of Sexuality Vol. 1) is finish my Teach Yourself Arabic book. Even though I teach ESL, I underestimate how mind numbing trying to learn a new language can be. (Sorry, students! May I have more mercy on your lesson plans!)

In the interest of trying to mitigate the pain of rote learning, I tried out this Arabic song lyrics blog. While it can be very helpful, I found it is only really good if you a) already know the sound of the song's lyrics or b) are willing to learn them. Let's say I am not huge Arabic-pop music fan, and appreciating the better music is more likely to come with learning more Arabic...

Let's not hurt ourselves, I say. I found this humble gem of a Lebanese children's tune. Indirect objects, old words, new verbs, all in less than 6 lines, and put into a sing-along-able mp3.

kelloun andoun siyyarat wou jeddi 3andou hmar
bi rakkebna khalfou wou byakhedna mechwar
woul bolice bi safferlou
bi idou bi acherlou
siyyarat bit zammerlou: pap pap pap!

Translation:

Everybody has a car but my grandpa has a donkey
He lets us ride behind him and takes us for a walk
And the policeman blows his whistle at him
With his hand he makes signs to him
All the cars honk at him : Pap Pap Pap.

1 comments:

Jinan said...

I'm a lebanese girl, & actually, I'm very surprised to read about this children's song on here...Well, I can't deny that you made me laugh because it's a funny song & I didn't hear it since I was little girl..
Nice blog..Great work..