The Arabic language is absolutely ingenious. Unfortunately, it takes a genius then to be able to speak it. There are a lot of really amazing things about it that make it 1. Absolutely beautiful, and 2. Very practical and efficient, but also 3. Ridiculously difficult. I will give you my present example, one of the things I think is wonderful about the language and the thing that daily makes me say, “this is impossible.” So each word comes from a root of three letters. And by putting these three letters into set patterns with other letters, you get different meanings. For example, the letters “k” “t” and “b” are the root of the words for reading. If you make a word “keh-teh-beh” you get the verb to read. “ehk-toob” is to write, “kee-taab” is the word for book, etc. So for verbs there are ten patterns that these letters go into to make different actions. Put the letters in the first pattern and you are doing the action. The second from, you are making someone else do the action. So, like the root letters for knowledge in the first form mean to teach and in the second from mean to learn/study. We get the idea? So you can make all kinds of words just by knowing these three letters which is wonderful but the problem comes in that now you have all of these words that sound quite similar but mean quite different things. Going back to the example with the verb “to teach.” So the difference between the first and second forms is a “shadda” over the second root letter, which basically just means you pronounce it for longer. So in English, basically it would mean that if I say “I study at the school” it means I’m a student at the school, but if I say “I studdddy at the school” (with a slightly longer “d” sound) it actually means I teach at the school. So yes, these two are connected and that’s so great that we can derive so many meanings from the same root but WHAT THE HELL ARABIANS? You want me to tell my action based on the slightly emphasized sounding of one freaking letter?? I mean, what if I just naturally have a longer “d” sound? What if I have a stuttering problem and you think I say a letter longer but really it’s just a nervous twitch because I’m worried you are going to ask me to stand up and teach the class instead of sitting with the rest of the dumbfounded students where I belong? Yesterday, one of my teachers said, “Arabic is really quite clear, you just have to know it,” and that is so how I feel. The smallest vowels (which aren’t included in informal written texts, mind you) make the biggest difference. Pronunciation in English can make things sound different or weird, but we can still understand meanings! Not to be discouraged, though, I do feel like it’s getting easier and “shewya shewya” little by litte as my host mom always says, it will come. The same teacher also said yesterday in class that when Western thinkers use Arabic to express their ideas, it comes up with all kinds of new ways to use the language and is really quite beautiful. So that is inspiring. In shah Allah, I, too, will make beautiful ideas in Arabic, but first I have to find out if I’m studying this subject or teaching it; if I am sending a letter or being sent one; if I am being born or giving birth; you know, little things like that.