Again.

original

Today I went to a fireside hosted by a dude who has lived in المملكة العربية السعودية for the past sixteen years. I waited until after all the old people had had a chance to shake his hand and tell him marginally relevant run-on stories, and as he was walking out, I zoomed right up next to him. I had to say something to him in Arabic. He'd walked near me earlier, and I'd totally chickened out, saying just "Hi" in English. Despite my flawless track record in Arabic classes, I have a terrible fear of saying things out loud to native speakers or people who speak well. This has gotten me into trouble on more than one occasion, as I've missed out on a lot of speaking opportunities. It's just incredibly hard for me to get up the guts to say something that I'll probably end up saying incorrectly; I beat myself up for weeks about mistakes. But this time there was no one else around--just me and the dude. We were walking out of the church, and this was my last chance.

"هل تتكلم اللغة العربية؟" I started, stuttering over the verb.
"¿Cómo?" said the man.
Confused, I repeated myself, carefully pronouncing every vowel. "هل تتكلم اللغة العربية؟"
He still looked confused.
"Arabic?" I prompted, desperate for recognition.
"Oh. I don't speak any Arabic," he replied, kind of annoyed.
My uncle, who was making conversation in the foyer, spotted us and came over. "Hey! You know what? My niece speaks Arabic!"
The man answered, "Yeah, she just did. I couldn't understand a word." And then he turned away to talk to his wife.

I was annoyed and insulted. The problem wasn't my Arabic, it was the fact that he spoke no Arabic.
And really, sixteen years in Saudi Arabia and you can't speak a word of Arabic? حرام عليك، يا رجل.