Session 5+6

Session 5:

I focused on speaking arabic. I have learned many of the grammar rules and have constructed sentences, I can type to friends and people give me positive feedback often saying " wow, you know so much Arabic!!" When I am writing them, I can look up a word i don't know very quickly and insert it in the sentence. Thus, writing in Arabic is much easier for me than speaking.

When I speak, I come to a word I don't know and I look it up. I then try to say the word, sometimes mis pronouncing it or using the wrong form of the word. People don't always understand me when I am speaking. I can write the exact same sentence and they will understand me. It is very frustrating!!

For session 5, I wanted to practice speaking. Since I am learning the classic Arabic there are only two places that this really spoken: The Quran and the news.

I took a surah from the Quran and practiced reading it to my teacher. He would correct me if I had errors. Before I read it to him, I listened to the reciters to listen to how it is supposed to sound. I would go line by line, and I believed I was not saying it right. However, my teacher said I was doing just fine. I think this might be my desire to say it perfectly just like the reciter vs. saying it correctly that could be understood.

Session 6:

Session 6, I decided to do an activity similar to session 4 but orally. I would just talk to my teacher, have a conversation. If I didn't know a word I would ask.  It was so difficult for me. I KNOW what i want to say, I have it in my mind but I would have to pause and think how to say it. I would think in English what I want to say, then remember the rules of Arabic or the differences of the language and then piece together the sentence. Once I figured out how to say it, I would fill in the words I dont know with words  I did know that are as close to what I am trying to say as possible. For example the slang word for someone who is trying to be funny( but not necessarily is funny) is "smajah". I use this word for someone who is funny as well since I don't know the word for funny.

I cannot say everything I want to say so, I tried to avoid words by using fillers. I wanted to say my car has a small gas tank. I pieced together a sentenced resembling " my car has small petroleum thingy" - Not exactly what I wanted to say, but what I could say based on my ability. The point was that my teacher understood what I was trying to say.