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.