Lately, I have slowed down with adding new content here and posting. The reason is to allow time for a class I am taking. Since April, I have been taking Arabic courses at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. Going into it, I did not know how long I would last, but just thought to try it. Maybe I would find it too difficult and quit after a few classes, or maybe I would catch onto it and do well with it. Last week, I finished the third semester, and now am more than halfway through EMSA (Elementary Modern Standard Arabic). By summer, I will have completed EMSA and will move on to intermediate and advanced levels. Next summer, there is a strong possibility that I will be traveling to Egypt to attend a conference. To make most of the opportunity, I plan to stay as long as possible and perhaps sign up to take the summer session there.

To help with learning the language, I try to be resourceful and find material to listen to or watch, such as BBC News (in Arabic), videos (television programs) posted on YouTube by Al-Jazeera, read online news web sites, etc. Recently, Osama bin Laden issued a new video/audio message to Europeans. I was able to listen to that and understand pretty well what he said, including “the truth is that as I said previously that I was responsible for the events in Manhattan.” The various Bin Laden videos have been useful for learning the language, since he is very well-spoken and that some of the videos come with English subtitles.

For now, I am posting on a new website - Al Duroos.com, which I am using as a way to practice and learn Arabic vocabulary, grammar, find learning resources, etc. I expect to be back here and expanding the content on this site more in a month or so. At some point, I hope to be proficient enough with Arabic, to begin translating content here on this site into Arabic, as well as making use of Arabic-language material (e.g. news articles) to make this site better.

إن شاء اللة (in shaa’ allah)