The Last First Day of Arabic Class

The Last First Day of Arabic Class; or, We Were on a (Summer) Break!

What Did I Do Over Summer Break?

The short answer: nothing. 

The long answer: I tried not to think about Arabic for the three months I was on break. Why? BECAUSE WE WERE ON A BREAK!

Thursday, September 2

I was woefully unprepared for my first day back to Arabic class. My worst fear came true: my professor threw us into the middle of the textbook, starting in Lesson 5. I thought (and prayed) that she would do a review of past concepts since our first year was on Zoom, but alas, that is not the case. 

We started by going over the new vocabulary. While I’m glad to be back in person, it was a bit difficult to hear my professor’s pronunciation. And the A/C blasting in the room didn’t help. My professor assigned us some homework before moving on to talking about numbers 11 to 100. It’s an interesting way in how these numbers are said. For instance, the Arabic for “22” literally translates to “two and twenty.” The number “185” would literally translate as “100 and 5 and 80.” Crazy, right? It really makes me think when I write numbers in Arabic. And unlike Arabic prose, which is read right to left, numbers are read left to right—like how we read everything here in the United States.

Honestly, I’m looking forward to finishing up my Arabic study. I feel like I’ve set myself up for failure since day one, and now I just want it to be over. I think, unfortunately, I took someone else’s passion and made it mine. And that’s okay, because sometimes that’s how we get our passions—by being influenced by someone else. But sometimes it doesn’t stick. And it hasn’t stuck with me. Now I need to figure out if certain things are really my passion or if I’ve just latched onto certain things because important people in my life have made it their passion. It’s kind of a hard pill to swallow when I really think about it, but it must be done. 

Arabic Word of the Week

weather / aljaww / الجوّ