The Fun and Challenge of Studying Arabic

From the first day of Beginning Arabic I, you will hear and speak Arabic. It can be exciting and a little nerve wracking.

“I really liked it from day one when we were being made to feel uncomfortable,” says Moises Herrera ’19, a native Spanish speaker. Professor Mervat Youssef “just started talking and we didn’t know what she was saying and eventually we got the hang of it.” 

“Mervat’s approach is more throw you in the water,” says Cora Touchstone ’19. “The first day I walked into class I felt like somebody had picked me up and dropped me in Egypt.” It made her a little nervous. “I guess the panicky feeling was just a little bit of what somebody would feel if they were actually dropped in Egypt, so I think you learn a lot faster.”

At Grinnell, no matter what language you’re learning, the approach is essentially the same — it’s an immersive experience.

Sarah Cannon ’19, who intends to major in political science, studied Spanish from kindergarten through her senior year in high school. She was a little burned out, so she decided to try Arabic.

“I wanted to learn another language that I consider a really important language to know in a global context,” she says. “One that’s important in the context of my major and in terms of how many people speak it globally.”

She continues, “One reason this class is so exciting is because it’s absolutely 100% new. We didn’t even know the alphabet.”

Arabic uses a phonetic alphabet that’s written in script form from right to left. The class spent the first two weeks learning it.

Touchstone says, “It’s crazy to think that before, when I would look at Arabic — because I always thought it was really pretty the way it was written — it just looked like symbols. But now it looks like letters.”

The class emphasizes all four skills: speaking, understanding, reading, and writing. It meets five days a week for 50 minutes and requires students’ attention throughout class.

“You constantly have to be focused,” Herrera says. “Mervat really knows when someone’s lost their train of thought. She points you out and you recuperate and she helps you come back to terms with the class. I think that’s extremely helpful.”

Cannon agrees wholeheartedly. “You’re forced to be fully engaged in every class period. It’s not really an option, but it feels good so I don’t really mind.”

Tarik Taghzouti, the 2016–17 Arabic language lab assistant and a Fulbright scholar, leads class on Fridays, when conversation skills are especially stressed. He refreshes the class on what they learned that week.

Taghzouti, a native of Morocco, holds language lab hours in the evenings. “I have to tackle small problems, big problems with students, what hinders their learning the language,” he says. “At the same time I judge and evaluate the work they’re doing, the readings they’re assigned.”

Students attend the lab to complete several “Listen Up” assignments. They read aloud to Taghzouti, who assesses their pronunciation, fluidity, and comprehension.

They also attend to get more one-on-one time with a native speaker. Herrera tries to go a couple of times a week. The lab is available Monday through Thursday evenings.

“I think I go just so I can practice some more,” Herrera says. “That extra 50 minutes of Arabic is really valuable and really helps speed up your learning process.”

At Grinnell, about 70% of the students study another language — for the intellectual challenge, for knowledge, and for fun.