Butchering the Local Language

Maybe it’s just me, but it really irritates me when people of English speaking nationalities make no attempt to speak the local language properly when living in a country foreign to them. I can understand tourists making mistakes, and will allow newly arrived expats a grace period of about a year, but the video depictred here really rubs me the wrong way.

The fantastically clean and efficient national metro system in Dubai announces your next stop in both Arabic and English. For all the millions of Euros it cost to build this transportation system, you would think they could have hired a professional announcer who could take the time to learn how to pronounce the Arabic words.

By the way, Deira is pronounced “Day-rah” and not “Deer-Rah”.

Living in Portugal for 9 years sensitized me to this seemingly blatant disrgard for local customs where the local language is admittedly difficult to pronounce, but do-able if you give it a little effort. Expats we know living there for decades still butcher the local language to such a degree, it’s almost comical. But I can’t help feeling it’s a disregard for the people and culture of the place they have been caling their home for years.

Now I’m off to find where I can take lessons in learning Arabic.