My name is Aileen, I live in Australia.
There are many things that have convince me to study Arabic; The diversity of the culture with its rich history, the various Arabic speaking countries, the different religions that are practiced amongst its people. Furthermore my love for Raqs-sharqi (or belly-dancing, as some prefer to call it), had its hand in leading me to want to study the Arabic language, so I can understand the songs I choose to dance to. Finally, the fact I hope to visit Egypt, & see the Pyramids, Sphinx, and Temples.
I’ve only just begun my journey in studying Arabic. For the past few weeks I’ve been struggling to find what approach would work best for me as a beginner (as in MSA first or a dialect). However I have come to a decision to study a dialect (as you probably would of guess from what I mention above - Egyptian), at the same time I want to familiarize myself with the alphabet, so I can read Arabic script and not rely to much on transliteration. Over time, I want to slowly introduce MSA, so I can improve on my grammar, as well as aid me in reading.