Marhaba. Ana Andrew...
Although last week was technically ‘reading week’ in my university course (which any student will know often means a week from reading), I did manage to do something productive. And I even managed some reading (!).
The productivity I eluded to came in the form of spending the last weekend out at the Olympia arena in Kensington, where there happened to be a Languages Show taking place (click here for the website)*. Since arriving in London I have been keenly searching for opportunities to speak other languages yet have been unable to attend the society meetings due to timetabling and lack of internet to check emails. And so, on hearing about the Languages Show I was keen to head along and speak some other tongues.
As part of the show this year, was the inclusion of some Intensive Language Courses, which at the cost of £20 per day offered tuition from an external language teacher across the whole day while the stands were running. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to learn something that I have wanted to for a long time now, Arabic.
The demand for this class was quite high - higher than for the other languages on offer – and the organisers had to put on another class. Even so, I joined the group of around 25 in this makeshift classroom on the upper floor of the arena and set about learning some Arabic.
At the offset, the teacher informed us that the written aspect is much more difficult than the spoken, although I would beg to differ. I picked up the written patterns far more easily than I did the spoken phrases and was able to construct the written symbols for most of the vocabulary that had been introduced to us during the session.
As for the oral side, well I can say ‘Hi, how are you?’ (“Marhaba, kaifa haluka?”) and could probably just about manage to order some salad (salata), sugar (sukr) and some coffee (qahwa). So the essentials then…
But my preference is the written side and despite my best efforts to avoid spending money, I did take advantage of a 40% show discount on a Teach Yourself Arabic Script book…
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