“His eyes are like the moon”: Arab Compliments

When I was in Egypt I struggled to know how to compliment young male children in Arabic (specifically, compliment their mothers about them). In the States, you can use such meaningless compliments as “He is adorable!” or “His [dark black curly] hair is darling!” This, of course, always makes the mother feel good and is an act of social politeness.

Not so in the Arab world.

For example, I know how to say “Your baby [daughter] is cute,” but the word for cute is too femmy for male children. However, it is a great way to start a conversation and to explain why I am staring at their child. I tried once in Egypt to tell someone that I loved her son’s hair (he was about one, and his hair was thick and black and curly), and this is what I said: “I love your son’s hair!” She looked at me totally not impressed and said, “What about it?” However, I couldn’t think of the Arabic word for curly, so I just said, “I like it!” and smiled at her widely.

She was totally nonplussed.

So, after a few failures like that, I finally asked Jason Andrus (who is our newspaper teacher on the group and who, coincidentally, is also the son of the man who was the first counselor in the bishopric in my ward at the Academy) how to compliment mothers on their young male children.

He told me to compliment them “like the Arabs would,” and this includes phrases like “his eyes are like the moon” or “he shines like the sun.” I thought for sure he just wanted me to make a fool of myself in front of someone, but he said, “The more awkward you feel saying it the better. The Arabs love it when it is cheesy.”

Well, armed with this information, and sure that I was going to make a fool of myself, the next time I saw a mother with a little boy I told her, “Your son’s eyes are like the moon!”

Expecting her to break out into laughter, I was surprised to see her smile widely and thank me for the wonderful compliment.

So what do you know? Now whenever I compliment anyone about anything, I think I will throw in how it is like the moon or how it shines like the sun.

“I love this bread! It shines like the sun!” “Your house is beautiful—it is like the moon!” “Your face is happy like the sun!”

I will have to let you all know how it goes.