On day 84 in Jordan, I invited a few friends to join me at what had become my favorite place to eat in Amman. Ahmed and Abudullah were always so nice to me ever since I stumbled upon their restaurant one day early on in my stay, and I made a point to go back there as often as I could. مطعم زيودة / Mataam Zayouda serves delicious falafel and more, and they agreed to let me film an episode of the Lernen to Talk Show near the end of my stay in Jordan. Somehow this episode was the first time I had the idea to actually bring a notebook with me for reference to keep the conversation on track, and it definitely helped!

1:03 – Do you recognize that friendly face in the background?

1:08 – I really struggled to remember that word زيودة / zayouda !

1:10 – I think Ahmed was telling a joke here that went over my head…

1:32 – I really wanted to work that past tense in here.

2:03 – Just like with learning a language.

2:36 – You never know who will walk into an episode of the Lernen to Talk Show.

3:06 – There’s a fun word: زبون / zuboon = “customer”

3:18 – I botched my attempt at “photographer”. Often in Arabic, the way to say the word for the person who does a thing is to add a “mu” sound to the beginning of a variation on the verb for the thing they’re doing. I forgot this rule in the moment, and I simply modified the verb صور / suur into its noun form, تصوير / tasweer, which means “photography.” The word I wanted was مصور / musuur, which means “photographer.” I recruited Scott again to film after seeing his fantastic work on Episode 11.

3:52 – What a graceful transition.

4:36 – I’m pretty sure this is the longest and most accurate sentence spoken to date for me caught on film in Arabic!