So you decided to take the best language that W&M has to offer.
Initially, you thought you knew what was going on. أ، ب، ت، ث (#neverforget). You had it! You could do all of the dictation that anyone could throw at you! You were unstoppable for a short amount of time, but then Alif Baa introduced غ, and everything changed.
You were too excited when your first word was توت, which means mulberry. Slowly, you realized that none of the vocabulary you learned actually goes together. You can say university, chicken, my chicken, the United Nations, and book.
You’ve gotten some weird looks in Swem when people walk past your laptop and they see the terrifying, giant lips moving on your laptop screen. Or when you start mumbling Arabic and it sounds like you’re dying, when really you are just trying to figure out how many ways there are to pronounce “t” and “th.”
You low-key (or high-key) freaked out when the first exam was on the entire Alif Baa textbook, after four weeks of class. You still aren’t sure how learning the alphabet could be so confusing.
You made this face when you realized you won’t be able to understand anyone in any Arabic speaking country because you can only speak Formal Standard Arabic.
You’ve slowly started to integrate Arabic phrases into your life. Insha’allah. (And “montastic” even that’s not exactly Arabic). You probably also downloaded the Arabic keyboard on your phone and text your non-Arabic friends in Arabic to seem cool.
You have a strong opinion about Maha, and you still aren’t sure why she is so aggressive when she talks about her family, or anything else for that matter.
In other classes, you’ve accidentally started taking notes from right to left. You've wasted a lot of paper.
How is it that words transliterated from English to Arabic are the hardest words to read?
Going out on a Thursday isn’t a thing. “I can’t. I have an Arabic quiz tomorrow and I have to study,” you say as you walk up Small Hill towards Swem. Swem has become your home, and your Arabic classmates have become your friends because everyone else is tired of listening to you try to speak Arabic.
Ostada George literally says the strangest, but equally the most inspiring things, which you initially hated, but have grown to love. “Be pinky not purpley.” "It's good to have a system, but don't become the system." And the infamous, “it will change tomorrow."
Even though Arabic is difficult, you know you picked the right language.
