Speaking Arabic… fluently

There’s a big difference between learning to say some things in a foreign language and becoming fluent in that language. I’m wanting to become fluent in Arabic… that’s my goal. To read it, write it, and think it was well as I do English. (I’m already dreaming I speak it… that’s a start!)

So how do you do that? How do you become fluent in another language, especially a “hard” language like Arabic? Well, first I’d say that thinking of a language as “hard” isn’t going to help. If you speak English you’re already able to use one of the most difficult languages in the world. We make up new rules every day… let alone words… and everyone seems to keep up just fine.

I found this interview with Dr. David Wilmsen, Director of Arabic and Translation Studies at the Center for Adult and Continuing Education (CACE) at the American University in Cairo. He’s talking about the 5 most important things someone learning Egyptian colloquial Arabic. One of the things he says is, “It is a language like any other, and you can learn to speak it and understand it by interacting with it.”

Interacting with it is crucial… the more I look at Arabic blogs on the internet, books at Barnes & Noble or Borders, think about Arabic, study it, even talk to people who know it, the more I understand it and the closer I come to being fluent. I’m still a long way off I know, but I am closer.