Learning Arabic

I've started my Arabic class with Berlitz through a center that helps foreigners called the Community Services Association (CSA).  We are lucky to live only a 10 minute walk from the CSA so this is very convenient.  My Arabic class has only three students in it and is for 2 hours twice a week. The other students are a woman from Uganda and a woman from Turkey.  The class is taught almost all in Arabic.  We're told that by the third class, there will be no English speaking allowed.  By the last half hour of the class, it's challenging to stay focused sometimes.  At the end of the last class we were introduced to the Arabic alphabet.  Above is a photo of what my first name looks like in Arabic.

I was happy to be in a kids' toy store a couple days ago and find refrigerator magnets with Arabic letters and numbers.  Cameron and I eagerly bought them.  A couple days ago, I gave Cameron a challenge of putting all the numbers in order (from right to left).  Now Cameron is just finishing a challenge I gave him which was to use my Arabic book and put the whole Arabic alphabet in order from right to left in two rows.



























He just came in to tell me that he has completed the challenge.   Here's the finished product.

Now all we have to do is learn the names of the letters, the sounds they each make and which ones get looped together when writing, as my name shows.  Did I mention that Arabic is the hardest language I've tried to learn so far?  Spanish and Swahili were a breeze compared to Arabic.  The first time I looked at a map and saw all the words in Arabic I thought, "Oh my gosh, what have I gotten us into!"  But for now, we're enjoying the challenge.  It's kind of fun to be at the same learning level as Cameron in something.  I have to do the same refrigerator magnet challenge I gave him in the next day or so!