D*BAI SURVIVAL TIPS

living in this country requires you to adapt. adapt to eating your pizza, burgers and fries WITHOUT the good old chilli sauce. adapt to having to settle for very greasy fried chicken in kfc. adapt to paying exorbitant prices for things which are so cheap back home. but on top of everything it requires you to adapt to the type of english that the country is using.

after staying here for a year, i have to say that i'm quite proud of my ability to adapt to the uae brand of english. i have friends from m*laysia who were impressed with the way i communicate with the taxi drivers and the shop assistants here. how i intentionally deteriorate my spoken english to make it comprehensible by the other party. i can even do their accent now :P

so, to those of you who plan to visit this country anytime soon (or planning to get a job here), let me give you a headstart on how to speak english - the emirates way. may i now present to you the first lesson of ...

"how to make people understand you in this country when you speak english"

FIRST LESSON : ORDERING FOOD

PART I - placing your order over the phone.

cafe: allu
you: hello, shahiq cafeteria?
*shahiq cafeteria, is, btw my favourite cafe here. they even know my name there :P
cafe: ayowa (this apparently means yes)- shahiq cafeteria
you: send me one chicken beriyani ok? a lot spicy aa? (being malaysian, i assume that you guys would want to order everything as "extra spicy" here)
cafe: wokkey. send wherr?
you: (name your location here). what time coming?
cafe: 20 minutes coming.
you: ok bye.

PART II - following up on your delivery (if you are not a regular, chances are you will have to do this)
you: hello, shahiq cafeteria?
cafe: ayowa
you: my friend (that's what everyone calls everyone here), where is chicken beriyani? (name your location here). very late coming.
cafe: ok.. coming coming. 5 minutes aaa...
you: come now ok? i am too much hungry.
afe: wokkey wokkey

TIP: don't ever try to go all queen's english and construct proper sentences like "i would like to place an order" or "how long do you think it will take for the delivery to arrive?". chances are, they will misunderstand you. keep it simple, and throw everything thaat you have learned back in grammar school out the window. stick to keywords. and you'll be fine :)

coming up in lesson two : flirting with ar*b guys

yeah, RIGHT - like i know how to do that :P