My name is Alessandra Abusada and my hobby is learning languages. Among all the languages I have studied, Arabic is my favorite. Its writing, its sounds, its structure, fascinates me. I don’t know if my favoritism is due to the fact that my four grandparents spoke Arabic (they were born in Palestine) and by learning it I recovered a part of me. Who knows? The truth is that since I was a child I felt a special attraction to the Arabic language. However, I did not venture to study it until my mid-thirties. I thought it would be too difficult to learn a language with an alphabet and logic so different from Spanish, that I couldn’t, that I didn’t have the time, that it would be frustrating, and I don’t know how many other negative ideas crossed my mind.

It was only in November 2010 that I went to Palestine with the intention of starting my basic Arabic studies. The trip, which was to last 45 days, turned into 5 years. During that time I got to learn Arabic. I put in a lot of hours and effort, went through periods of good progress and long months of stagnation. In retrospect I think I could have done better. There are ways and ways to learn. Order matters. Not feeling overwhelmed matters. Not judging yourself is paramount. But most of all, flow and have fun in the process. With this basic writing and pronunciation course I hope to help break the mental barrier; writing and speaking Arabic is not difficult, it is a wonderful world worth exploring.