Day 1!

To start off the first day of our course, I had a lecture from Dr. Dar about the transition from Classical Arabic Literature to Modern. He mainly talked about two authors, Taha Hussain and Naguib Mahfouz, more focusing on Naguib Mahfouz in the latter half of the lecture. Through Dr. Dar's lecture, I was able to learn much more about the history of Arabic Literature, as well as the specifics of Naguib Mahfouz's literature and writing style. Specifically, the transition from Classical Literature to Modern occurred because of the recent independence from the Ottoman Empire, as well as the influence of Western Literature. Naguib Mahfouz's stories were realistic in the beginning, focusing on the environment that was around him. Specifically, he wrote 3 novels which were about 3 generations of families in Cairo, Egypt. Later, he started to move away from strict realism, and he started to write more stories about more magical realism. One specific instance of this was his adaptation of 1001 Arabian Nights. One specific aspect of his writing is his lexicon, in which he uses Modern Arabic, but shapes the language to make it seem more like how people in Egypt at that time talked. This was super interesting to me as I've never learned about these specific authors before! Afterwards, I asked some questions and we ended the lecture for the day!

After Dr. Dar's lecture, I took a small break and had lunch! 

In the afternoon, I continued and had my Arabic Lesson with Ms. Samira! We mainly reviewed some of the vocabulary and pronouns that I learned a few days ago with her. Specifically, we reviewed the vocabulary for the different parts of the face and used them in various different sentences. We also reviewed 1st and 2nd person pronouns, which are still a little bit difficult for me, but I feel like I'm grasping them a little bit! For majority of the lesson, we reviewed 1st and 2nd person pronouns with different vocabulary that I already learned from my last Arabic Language and Literature A-Term. Afterwards, Ms. Samira gave me some worksheets to practice 1st and 2nd person pronouns, and we are going to go over them in our next class tomorrow!