قهوة

That word up there is “coffee”, btw. A very important word, always but also one that took me some time to get accustomed to in my Arabic vocabulary.

Someone asked me, a few days ago, if I could say a bunch of things in Arabic now and I laughed. It’s been, what… three and a half weeks since classes started and after these past few weeks what I now know is the alphabet. Normally, after a few weeks of learning a language I’d be able to say all sorts of things. Hell, I could have entire conversations (simple conversations, but still) in German after teaching myself for a couple of weeks. I am used to languages being easy. This is really new and unusual for me, having to put some real effort into learning a language. Arabic is not at all unattainable but it is not easy. It is, by far, the most challenging language I have learned but in that respect, also the most rewarding.

I have, at times, bemoaned the fact that I’m locked in to taking a full year of Arabic – there’s really no point in taking one quarter. So now that I’ve started, I need to complete the 100-level. However, now that we’ve finished the alphabet and are moving into actual words and sentences, etc, I expect it to get a little easier. I love my teacher and and have a great group of people in my class that I’ve been studying with.

I’m really glad that I’m learning Arabic and thinking I will continue with it after I’ve finished the 100-level. I had considered doing German AND Arabic at the same time this quarter and I am really glad I didn’t!!

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