Marhaba! Kiif halkum?
(Your response is "hamdu-lillah! Maabsuttiin")
Good day! How are all y'all?
"Praise God! We're all fine"
Arabic is one of those mind boggling languages that has multiple layers to learn: the speaking part (including masculine and feminine forms of every noun, pronoun, verb, etc.), and the written part. Then, you have to decide if you want to go further and try to learn the classical language (instead of the colloquial version). In classical Arabic, there are 12 possible endings for every noun, verb, pronoun, etc. (instead of just 8).
But, if you've learned some of the basics, including
la = no
aywa (or na'am) = yes
shukran = thank you
afwan = you're welcome
ahlan wa sahlan = Welcome! (to which you respond ahlan wa sahlan fiik!)
wa salaam aleikum = hello (to which you respond aleikum wa salaam)
ma is-salaame = goodbye
If you've learned these, you've covered a lot of ground. Of course, you cannot have a real conversation, but at least you can say hello and be friendly! Then tricky bit is, if you sound too good with these phrases, then your conversation partner thinks that you can actually speak Arabic and might launch into some other topic about which you CANNOT converse.
Then, you just look at them dumbly with your mouth hanging open. Try it, it works.
It's at that point that I usually think "WHY didn't I study Arabic before coming here like I intended to?!?!?!?"
My favorite joke in Egypt was to exchange pleasantries the best I could, and then when the incomprehensible reply would come (as you described above), I would say, in very well practiced Arabic:
ReplyDelete"Ana aseph, ana mish bit kellum Arabia, khallus."
Which means (in the Egyptian dialect at least), "I'm sorry, I don't speak any Arabic whatsoever."
That joke never got old and people always laughed. See if it works for you!