[VIDEO BELOW]

Before I begin, I must say that filming this video took some courage because, in case you haven’t heard this from me at at least 100 times before, Arabic is hard! And as I’ve realized, learning three dialects/registers of Arabic is even harder.

For a quick timeline of my Arabic studies, I focused on Shaami (Levantine) Arabic for two years after my NSLI-Y summer program in Jordan. This summer, in preparation for the academic portion of my year in Morocco, I spent June and July focusing solely on Fus7a (Modern Standard Arabic), and took my placement test and Oral Proficiency Test in Fus7a. Throughout August, I learnt some very basic Darija (Moroccan Arabic), so that I will be able to attempt to survive in Morocco without relying too much on other dialects, or worse, other languages.

Neglecting Shaami for three months proved to have some negative results, so for the past few days, I’ve been working on reviving my Shaami, as I can’t afford to lose that as well! So with this, I present my imperfect Shaami, my awkward Fus7a, and my absolutely rudimentary Darija. Enjoy, and please give feedback because I desperately need it!!

Click CC for English subtitles!