سوء الفهم

The title above means “Misunderstanding”.

I want to share something which I will never forget. Well, at least until something more hilarious happens.

It happened about 7 months ago during my trip to Aleppo (حلب) with some friends. We were about to have dinner at the rooftop of a backpackers’ hotel in Halab…when a guy from a European country approached us (I won’t mention which country).

He started to chat but since I was sitting at the outer part of the dining table, he seemed to speak to me more. Anyways, my friends and I were actually very tired. My friends answered his questions in monosyllables while I, more.

And then he spoke some Arabic. Seriously, he had good pronunciation of the Arabic letters, so I commended him by saying, “Your makharij al huruf is very good!”

And then suddenly this guy raised his voice slightly and said…..

“WHAT IS THIS?? YOU JUST KNEW ME AND YOU CALL ME A KHARUF ?!!(sheep).”

It was such a funny but tense situation and one of my friends who understood English started to look puzzled. Me too, but then I answered, “You got me wrong, Brother. I said ‘Huruf’, not ‘kharuf’. Huruf means letters. I was saying your pronunciation of Arabic  letters is very good.”

And that guy turned red and started apologising….

“Sorry, I’m sorry I am not really very good in Arabic…sorry I misunderstood”.

And he went on and on…and finally he invited us all for coffee later in the night. But we thanked him, and told him we had to retire early for the night as we will be continuing our sojourn to visit castles around Halab the next day…

So, that is my story on miscommunication. Have you any similar ones?