My journey learning Arabic

I started to use Internet when I was 15 years old. My main goal was to practice some English, Russian and Spanish. During my teenagerhood, I used to receive a lot of help from Latin American people (for Spanish), Americans (for English), Italians and Russian speaking people (mostly Russians and Ukrainians). My interest in Arabic started in my teenagerhood when I fell in love with the Belly dance (I saw it for the first time (it was in a school excursion 2005, we went to Greece and there was a talented lady who was dancing during our dinner time, and I was impressed with all of her movements with her belly.) I wanted to become like her, so I started to learn everything by myself. At first, I started to watch some videos in Spanish, but the good resources were so limited. Then, I started to watch some videos in English (it was OK, but still not enough.). Then, I started to do small research and to read about the history of the belly dance. I discovered a lot of interesting things. That was already good enough because I could see my progress. However, when I started to look for some music, I can use… I discovered that all songs were in Arabic. So, I used to listen singers such as: Moustafa Amar, Nancy Ayram and many others more. However, when I was listening to Moustafa Amar, Amr Diab, … many other singers from Egypt, it was love at the first hearing. I believed them every single word they sang (even though I understood nothing…. I guess, my heart was capable enough to recognize their emotions). My brother has seen how much my love towards the Arabic language and its music was growing, so because of this, he decided to find something so I could learn Arabic. He found: “Arabic for dummies” book, which was fine, but it was obviously oriented to the MSA. I accepted it just because I only saw it was “Arabic language” and I wanted to learn it no matter how. So, I started to use this and also “Teach yourself Arabic” but nothing worked for me since I would start and stop with my Arabic learning. I also tried with some applications such as: memrise, mondly (but of course, I could find only MSA….) and later with the app “utalk” (that was the only app that has the top 4 most common dialects: guff, MSA, Egyptian and Levantines Arabic. In a meanwhile, I used to meet a lot of people from the Arabic world (Morocco, Saudi Arabia and especially Egypt). It was not only online… I also met some of them in person here in Serbia or at the international polyglot gathering in Bratislava. They all became good friends of mine. From time to time, they would teach me some Arabic but still, nothing went as I hoped. Finally, last year (in August) I decided to go to Egypt because I was so curious to learn many interesting things about Egypt. My brother let me know we needed to go to Egypt like 4 months in advance. I decided to use this opportunity to learn some Arabic (because I wanted to impress Arabs, especially during my talk in the Egyptian dialect). I used to study with a couple of teachers on ITALKI Hamada - https://www.italki.com/teacher/4880223 Mohamed - https://www.italki.com/teacher/7671709 Amr (my favorite teacher) - https://www.italki.com/teacher/4301533 with all of them, I used to study with the textbook “colloquial Egyptian Arabic” https://www.pdfdrive.com/colloquial-arabic-of-egypt-colloquial-series-e160015815.html They taught me also the Arabic letters (and I love their ways how they taught me, especially the Amr’s one. Amr is so funny and positive. Plus, he knows some Turkish which is essential for me because at that moment, my Turkish was already about B2/C1 level). In this picture you can see my notes, how I understood the Egyptian Arabic letters Of course, we worked so hard, and we completed this book. Plus, we worked on some PDF with the touristic phrases (in Egyptian Arabic). When I came to Egypt, I felt like overwhelmed with the information I got, but at the same time I was so happy and excited. I just tried to listen and to speak in Arabic. Even I greeted the police officer who was controlling our passport with “Salamo aleykum” and he was so shocked. I liked his facial expression; I’ll never forget it. However, he kept being professional, so he used only English with me. It worked fine at the beginning. Egyptians are really friendly and warm people. That means that they will do everything just to help you and to teach your Arabic. I’m so grateful to them. I even got praised by two people… one lifeguard at the swimming pool (that was near my hotel) praised my Arabic (even though it was so limited, and I know I used to mispronounce some words…. And he would tell in front of everybody “She speaks Arabic perfectly; she pronounces the words so well. Just listen to her! “ My cheeks started to blush because it was too good to be true. When other people walked away, I told him with a smile on my face “I love the way you’re lying” but he said “No, I’m not, it is truth.” At our hotel, in a restaurant (and also, the barmen from the beach near our hotel) all the waiters did their best to help me, especially if I would struggle with some words. I really loved it. Also, one salesman (who sales the perfumes) gave me the nickname “Egyptian lady” just because I did my best to speak in Arabic. I was speechless but I loved his words. During my conversation with Egyptians in Hurgarda and in Cairo, I found out some interesting fact. They like to talk a lot; they will do anything just to attract your attention. It’s interesting how easily they can talk about any stranger about anything you want. They can even try to joke straight away with you (but also, from that “joking” there could be some other intentions in behind – like flirting or something like this) so you have to be very careful. Once, I needed to speak to our car driver (because our guide hired one driver who would drive us through Cairo) and my guide insisted on me speaking in Arabic with this driver. It was fine only during the first two minutes. After that, I ran out of the ideas what could I ask him and I tried to use google translate (but of course, there was only in MSA and my pronunciation in Arabic was not perfect. I made a lot of mistakes, so the poor driver did not understand me. I showed him my phone twice. At that moment, my brother told me “stop showing him your phone, he is driving.” ) I knew my brother was right but at that moment I felt ashamed and sad. Therefore, I practically begged for English. The rest of the vacation was OK for my body and but deep in my brain I felt sad and unhappy because I felt like everything, I was learning was “useless”. That is why, when I came back to Belgrade, I decided to learn Egyptian Arabic seriously (and once I master it, to help Arabs learn Turkish much easier – because they want it so badly). So, I kept learning with my teachers, with some language partners (especially Hussam, my friend from Cairo and Samara, my friend from Alexandria). This is the true reason why I decided to buy the books for the Egyptian dialect. Trust me, from the moment I started to learn it seriously I felt like I was born for the second time. It is so smoothy, so beautiful and so soft. I am falling in love with this dialect over and over. Thank you for your understanding.