Today, I taught an Arabic speaking friend the Urdu alphabet. The task was not too difficult, since the Arabic and Urdu alphabets are very similar. However, he did have some trouble with pronunciation. This was an issue for me in the beginning of the semester as well. My friend said that when he looks at the words, his brain automatically processes them as Arabic words so when he wants to pronounce them, he's inclined to pronounce everything similarly to Arabic. Practice will make perfect, I told him.
I have been reflecting on my progress for this semester, and to be honest, I'm not completely happy with where I am. I have had some accomplishments of course. I can now read and write easily in Urdu. I can ask questions about a person's day and identity and have a basic conversation. However, I have underestimated the difficulty of self directed learning in the beginning of the semester. In my meeting with Dr. Sharon, I mentioned how difficult it was to motivate myself to learn while there's so much to do for my other classes. Her suggestions were extremely helpful. So far, I've been incorporating them into my learning plan. One of the most helpful ones was to schedule 15 minutes of learning Urdu in between my other work. This serves as a nice break from my normal business school workload and a way to motivate myself to learn more Urdu.
Comments
I'm glad my suggestions helped. And it is quite an accomplishment to read and write easily!