About

Our emerging Arabic program helps Arabic learners at Loyola find connections between classroom learning experience and multiple investments of Arabic as applied to their own worlds. Students celebrate their ability to own their Arabic learning as it fits their needs and enjoy discovering opportunities in which Arabic helps them in diverse personal contexts.

Arabic at Carson Pierre Scott

Posted on: December 3rd, 2012 by sabbadi

My name is Besma, and I am currently a junior at Loyola majoring in Psychology. I have taken 2 semesters of Arabic. There are many reasons why I took Arabic, but my main reason was to learn the language so that I can communicate with other people who speak Arabic and also to be able to understand the Quran better, being Muslim. I have grown up with many Arab people and many Arab people are a very big part of my life, so I thought why not learn their language?

I work at a retail store called  and worked a lot during the summer. At work, I meet many customers/clients that come from an Arab descent, and they always ask me if I know how to speak their language. So this summer I was able to proudly say that yes, I do know the language, somewhat. I had a customer at work one day and she didn’t know English very well but she was Arabian and I managed to keep a small conversation with her in Arabic! She asked me about what shoes we had (I work in the shoe department) and where I went to school and how I knew Arabic and I managed to respond to her and talk to her in Arabic! She asked me if I was engaged because she saw me wearing a ring and I understood her because she used the word “makhtooba” and I understood her because we discussed that word in class. It was a proud moment for me and I never realized how much I had learned in the one year I took Arabic and hope to use what I have learned more in my near future.