Arabic Language Classes

as-salamulakum, marhaba, ahlan ... peace be upon you, welcome, hello!

Yes, the blog is feeling a little neglected of late :-( There's been a lot happening these days ... my friend visited for most of the month of May which was awesome! My Grandma passed away so I went home in early June. The rest of the month was littered with deadlines, errands and other busy-ness ... more on all that later (except the work-related stuff which all I will say is ... argh!!!) The blog, being an extra-curricular thing, sometimes takes a back seat. But July is shaping up to be a bit more relaxed (public holiday next Monday woot woot!) so I hope to catch up here. And to make matters worse, my lap-top died ... or just went blind ... not sure what's wrong but luckily I did not lose any data, just the screen. In the mean time, I am struggling to get by on my Mac (which has issues of its own).

One of the things that has become an all-consuming hobby is Arabic classes. I started in May with Beginner I at the Arabic Language Centre. It is a rather intense program and, as I said, my friend was visiting so I had better things to do than conjugate verbs and memorize vocabulary! The teacher was ... how shall I say? ... less than patient and I went home after every lesson feeling like the class retard (I now understand how some learning-challenged kids must feel!) Since I hate that feeling (and I got PO'd), my competitive streak kicked in and I studied my buns off to spite her. Perhaps that is just her teaching style, she succeeded in getting me off my ass, but I was happy to start Beginners II with a different teacher (who is great!)

One of the differences between Beginner I and Beginner II is the use of transliterations. In Beginner I, we learned the Arabic alphabet which (surprisingly!) is not as difficult as one might think but it was always accompanied by the "latin-ized" pronunciation. Starting with Beginner II, this is not the case! It was a matter of survival and a steep learning curve to wean myself off my "Englishized" cheat notes.

So how am I doing with the Arabic language? This is one of the most difficult languages for anglophones to learn, especially one who has been monolingual for the last 40 years! And one can function quite comfortably in Dubai without knowing a shred of Arabic so there's not much in the way of "immersion". I can sound out words when I see them written in Arabic but with a limited vocabulary, I don't actually know what I'm saying. I can count and tell time and know days of the week. I can understand simple conversations (if spoken VERY slowly ... shway shawy!) No one understands when I speak, I have to repeat myself in English. Baby steps :-)

Since I am temporarily a Mac user in a PC world, I can't seem to post videos here but here's a link to a cute little clip on You Tube of kids singing the Arabic Alphabet ... sing along if you know the words!!! hehe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK9kq0UMDdY