Meet Vilma from Finland who is studying Arabic in Palestine: “My name is Vilma and I’m from Finland. I attended the intensive Arabic course in spoken Levantine dialect for one month. For someone who doesn’t speak Arabic the language can seem overwhelmingly difficult.
Before coming to Palestine my skills in Arabic were limited to shokran and Assalam Alaykum. My expectations as to how much I could learn during one month were not high – I’d be happy to learn greetings and the alphabets.
As soon as I started the Arabic intensive course I realized I would face a positive surprise. I was done learning the alphabet in three days and in one month I was able to handle the basic everyday situations in (a slow and broken) Arabic. I even learned to read and write!
This is all thanks to my amazing teachers Ibrahim and Marwa. Not only the classes are flexible and built to meet the student’s needs, the teachers actually become your friends which is a huge help in practicing speaking. What does it take to learn Arabic? I would say patience, curiosity, hard work and talking with the locals. The good thing about learning Arabic in Hebron is, first of all, that many locals don’t speak a lot of English and that’s how Arabic is easily the only language for communicating.
Second, the people in Hebron are extremely friendly and since they’re very curious about the few foreigners in the city talking with them is warmly encouraged. And last, if you are interested in learning spoken Arabic instead of Fosha then the dialect you learn is Palestine is also helpful in the rest of the Levant area.
Having said all this, mastering both the written and spoken Arabic fluently will take years. That is why my advice for a beginner is to be patient and take one step at a time. You will learn the tricks, details, and exceptions along the way – the most important thing is to be able to communicate, however incorrect your grammar is. Yalla!”
