Arabic, Can We Be Friends?

Sooooooooo..I hated Arabic. With a passion. I hated how hard it was to remember, I hated the difficulty of the tenses, and I hated how hard it was to write. There is an incredible amount of stuff to know to even be reasonably competent at the language.

Don't get it twisted, though. I might have hated it, but I always respected it.

Anyway, I wrote a while ago about how frustrated I was, and I was even thinking about starting over from scratch because maybe I thought some little key would unlock that would make me wonder why it was so tough.

Luckily last night, that key started to turn.

At my job, I met one of my supervisors, who just so happens to be a Muslim. His name is Munir, and when I met him, I asked him if he could speak Arabic, and of course, he could; not fluently, but he could. Lately, we've been talking about the language more, and he's actually given me some resources, including the Yassarnal Quran. I'm Christian, but I don't mind checking out other religious materials, especially if it'll help me learn a language. I'm def not one of those "there is only one religion" kinds of people, lol. I found a free copy, downloaded it, and emailed it to myself. I checked a few pages already, and it gives another breakdown of all of the characters and symbols, which is fantastic.

But about last night.

I had some inspiration from talking to Munir, because we all know how apprehensive I even was about continuing. So, I decided to plop down at my apartment and force myself to do an Arabic lesson.

The opening conversation (they play one at the beginning of every lesson) had me going like O_o, but once it started asking me questions, I actually was able to recall some words! And what else happened? The new things I learned actually started to make sense!

I'm back, I'm back, I'm back! I'm not scared anymore, and you know, I might just be falling in love with Arabic all over again. If I do, it will be one of the most important achievements of my life.  A) because where I'm from, people don't speak many other languages aside from Spanish, ESPECIALLY not Arabic, and B) because for something so hard, it'd be worth the hardships to accomplish it.

As always, comments, concerns, advice, resources, and tips, are welcome.

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

P.S. My lovely girlfriend has a new blog up, and you all should follow her!! She is completely awesome, and none of you mfs can have her, but you can read her blog and comment on it. ;)

Her blog: Dearpastself.com