Previously, I wrote about taking my first Arabic class at Pacific Arabic Resources in SF. After I finished this first class, Introduction to Arabic, I moved on to Modern Standard Arabic 1, the next class in the series. Today was the last day of MSA 1 and I’m moving onto MSA 2, which starts in two weeks.

Learning Arabic has always been one of those things that I always wanted to do but never really got around to. It’s something that is best learned in an immersive environment - the most ideal way to learn Arabic is to move to an Arabic speaking country for a while and take classes there. However, I’ve never had the opportunity to do something like that and as obligations increase, chances of doing something along those lines gets slimmer and slimmer. I finally realized that learning it little by little is better than nothing and in this manner I can still attend to my responsibilities, which is why I finally decided to enroll in classes.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in class, going over homework with everyone else when it hit me: One day I will know Arabic well. I got so excited at that thought. It was just such an amazing feeling that I will one day actually achieve a goal I’ve had for myself for quite a while. I have a ways to go*, but InshAllah I’ll get there. I must now exude patience…

*Pacific Arabic Resources has classes all the way up to MSA 8 so you can imagine how much further I have to go.

So I had my first Arabic class this week at the Pacific Arabic Institute in San Francisco. I found out about this place from a google search- I don’t know anyone who has taken a class from them. Even though it seemed like a respectable institution based off of the website, I half-expected an empty plot of land where the building was supposed to be with a note that said “Haha fooled you! And now we have your money!” [Please note: This note would have had to be read in a sing-song voice for it to have the proper impact.]

Anyways, turns out this place does exist and there actually was a class. The instructor seems cool and the fact that the Kimchi Ninja is taking the class with me makes it all the more fun.

The cool (hmm… I already used cool. Neat?) part about this particular class was that because PAR does not have any kind of political or religious affiliation, it was filled with a diverse group of people who wanted to learn Arabic for all sorts of reasons.

I’m really looking forward to future sessions. From the taste of Arabic I got from the first class, I can’t wait to learn more.