Egyptian Home: Run the Household

How to play: this is a language game wearing an Egyptian house. You are ماما (Mum), and you are not running the household — the house runs itself: she walks to the stove, the sink, the washing machine, the ironing board and the medicine cabinet on her own, and potters about sweeping and tidying the الأنتيكة when nothing is wanted. What you do is read Egyptian and answer two questions.

Take as long as you like. There is no time limit and nothing to beat the clock to: a day is 10 questions, and it ends the moment you answer the last one. One question is up at a time, and the whole house stands still whenever anybody is talking — nobody walks, nobody asks for anything and nothing moves — so you can read every line as slowly as you need. If a row of answers is up, choosing one starts the house again; if there is no row — she says she is on it, somebody grumbles, somebody says thank you — tap the play button on the speech bubble when you have finished reading it. How long the day took is recorded on the end-of-day card, and your fastest run at each level is kept.

1 — Which job? Somebody says what is wanted: هدوم أخويا مكرمشة اوي. — “My big brother’s clothes are terribly creased.” Pick the chore off the row along the bottom. ⚠ The wrong answers are not random, they are the mistakes worth making once: يعمل شاي make tea against يعمل لبن make up a bottle — one verb, two objects — and يغسل wash, ينشر hang out, يكوي iron, all three taking الهدوم — one object, three verbs. Read half a phrase and it is a coin toss. Pick the wrong job and she is not stopped: she does it, sees it is not what was asked for, and starts again — which costs her the walk and the work, in front of you.

2 — Who is it for? She finishes and asks herself الهدوم دي لمين؟ The answer is the name in the same sentence, and the row offers the household: بابا Dad, ماما Mum, جدو Grandad, تاتا Grandma, أخويا big brother, أختي little sister and البيبي the baby. Take it to the wrong person and they hand it back, kindly, and she walks on to the right one.

⚠ The family words ARE the lesson. Egyptians call people by the family word they are to them, and the word is the lesson: بابا Dad, ماما Mum, جدو Grandad, تاتا Grandma, أخويا my big brother, أختي my little sister, البيبي the baby. A child asking for something says who they are — the one who asks names themselves, and knowing whose mouth a word came out of is the whole of the second read. Every line keeps its politeness too — لو سمحت please, carried from the foundation lesson — and leaving it off is the commonest way a foreigner sounds curt while saying nothing wrong.

The Level row is which level of the Home lesson tonight's day is — the same levels the course wall is divided into, numbered the same way. The Difficulty row is how much of each line is written: Beginner writes the say-it-like-this and the English under every line, Intermediate the say-it alone, Advanced the Egyptian with nothing under it. The house fills in five stages over the lesson's early levels: level 1 is the two children and the school run, level 2 brings بابا and his breakfast before work, level 3 تاتا and her tea and medicine, level 4 البيبي and the washing, and level 5 جدو and supper for the whole house — and past level 5 the house holds at its fullest while the lesson keeps going. From level 3 what was said fades a few seconds later — tap whoever said it to hear it again, free but for the time, which is the one tap left on the floor. The children go to school and come back, and بابا goes to work and comes home before supper.

You cannot lose a day. Nothing is timed and nobody gives up, so nothing ends the day except answering its last question. What varies is your time and how many you got right.