I have decided that in September 2009 I want to start studying basic Arabic, in the Cardiff University Centre for Lifelong Learning. I am going to enrol to weekly evening classes for beginners.
I am aware that Arabic is a very difficult language and I do not expect to become fluent. However, I would love to be able to say and understand at least basic sentences. Learning some Arabic can be very useful for a belly dancer for various reasons:
Learning Arabic can help non Arabic dancers to understand more about the cultures that the different types of belly dance, raqs sharqi, Oriental dance (or whatever you want to call this art form) originate from.
It could be interesting to understand a little bit more of the Arabic songs lyrics, which could help interpret better a song when you dance to it. At the moment, the only Arabic word I know is ‘habibi’ (my darling, my love) because it appears in almost every Arabic song that belly dancers listen to.
As it is most belly dancers’ dream to travel to Arabic speaking countries, such as Egypt, it is very useful to be able to speak a bit of the language if you have the opportunity to travel to one of these countries.
I am looking forward to the beginning of Arabic classes in September, and I will keep you posted on my impressions after I start.
I am aware that Arabic is a very difficult language and I do not expect to become fluent. However, I would love to be able to say and understand at least basic sentences. Learning some Arabic can be very useful for a belly dancer for various reasons:
Learning Arabic can help non Arabic dancers to understand more about the cultures that the different types of belly dance, raqs sharqi, Oriental dance (or whatever you want to call this art form) originate from.
It could be interesting to understand a little bit more of the Arabic songs lyrics, which could help interpret better a song when you dance to it. At the moment, the only Arabic word I know is ‘habibi’ (my darling, my love) because it appears in almost every Arabic song that belly dancers listen to.
As it is most belly dancers’ dream to travel to Arabic speaking countries, such as Egypt, it is very useful to be able to speak a bit of the language if you have the opportunity to travel to one of these countries.
I am looking forward to the beginning of Arabic classes in September, and I will keep you posted on my impressions after I start.
1 comments:
It's a great thing you're doing this. Maybe it's not essential, but it does make a world of difference! My Arabic is still very basic. I mean I need like five minutes (and perhaps a dictionary) just to put together a fairly simple sentence. But even this little is giving me better insight into the culture in various ways. I'm looking forward to learning more. You'll see - you'll love it!
(p.s. I'm a fellow dancer from the Balkans, somehow ended up on this page after a google search on shikhat :)
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