Armenian Lesson #2: Introduction to Conversational Armenian

I was once able to contemplate the shapes of the Armenian alphabet with the scholarly sangfroid afforded by 8,000 miles of distance. That gap closed with the bewildering speed of a jetliner from Paris, and now I find myself stranded among those same shapes, forced to scale them for every meager request and every humdrum encounter. Armenian is the language that I will use to buy groceries, pay bills, receive directions, ask for medicine, go to the bank, introduce myself, find the bathroom, apologize, interrogate, tell stories, understand jokes, find out which streets to avoid, figure out which bus goes where, and to refuse a glass of tan—I make my living with English, but it’s Armenian that will keep me from dying.