My various Arabic books keep screaming at me, “Don’t lift your pen in the middle of a word! Don’t lift your pen!” It is both alarming and intimidating. However, the calligrapher shown on the Alif Baa DVD sometimes…
Today I visited the Arab American Association of New York in Bay Ridge and sat in on an English class for women, taught by two dedicated recent college graduates. I have been trying to find a non-profit where I could…
Today I received an e-mail from a charming and helpful man, Kelly, at Simon & Schuster, which is the publisher of Pimsleur products. The e-mail came in response to my questions about Pimsleur prices, which seemed to have been dropping…
I’ve been noticing something cool about Arabic. Americans claim fluency very easily in other languages—Spanish or French, for example—when they really aren’t fluent. In Arabic, however, no one I’ve encountered so far, other than native…
“Arabic is extremely hard,” I just announced to Brandt, without grace and with plenty of irritation. My problem (one of them) is that throughout my life, when I haven’t understood something, I have tended to develop an underlying irritation…
I did Arabic VocabuLearn in the shower today. I am recognizing more words. However, there are quite a few differences between VocabuLearn and what Pimsleur is teaching me, far more than there were between the Russian VocabuLearn and the Russian…
After looking into things further, I have determined that the new and improved Level II of Pimsleur Eastern Arabic is totally unrelated to the ancient Level I got from the library—the one I have spent the past three weeks…
People keep encouraging me to take a class instead of doing this on my own. I don’t want to. One of the reasons I don’t want to is that classes go too slowly. Also, other people annoy me.…
Today was my second English class at the Arab American Association of New York. I took the Brooklyn-bound N train, which goes over Manhattan Bridge and offers a spectacular and inspiring view of Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn Bridge, and the Statue…
Today I did tons of Pimsleur errands. I walked all over Manhattan with my giant headsets on, learning Arabic everywhere I went. I learned Arabic as I walked through Central Park, twice, back and forth to a doctor’s appointment…
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