 Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Welcome everyone, all the viewers and watchers from the how I learn Arabic stories I'm reading you guys another amazing story inshallah from our brother Zafir Is it Zafir or Zafir? I always have problems with Zafir That's the problem of writing Arabic names in English Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi first of all to you Alhamdulillah warahmatullahi wabarakatuh So I'm going to give you guys a little introduction about our guest today So this brother his name is Zafir Mughal If I'm pronouncing it well He's 23 years old lives in London He's a graphic designer by profession You guys can check him out in MughalGraphics.co.uk The link is going to be in the description And he went to study in Nasr city Nasr city Medina to Nasr Pretty known for all of those western students who went to study once in their life in Egypt I'm pretty sure they went through Nasr city and they probably got stolen by one of them taxi drivers That was in 2017 and you spent over a year studying Arabic That's amazing that I'm actually having the opportunity to To interview brothers and sisters who Kind of had the same journey as me in terms of learning the Arabic language And Egypt is a place known for their mastering Of knowing how to teach those non-native Arabic speakers So I want to ask you first of all What drives you to just take your luggage and be like Okay, I'm going to Egypt to study Arabic It's kind of similar to what you're trying to do yourself In terms of having a business that you can take anywhere around the world So I've been self-employed for a few years now With my graphic design business So I can literally take my laptop anywhere around the world And I'm not restricted to any location So literally I studied in a secondary school An Islamic secondary school So I did an Arabic GCSE qualification I didn't do too well But I had a little bit of a foundation Like I knew what Bait was and I knew what Rajul was So but then literally a few years ago One brother said like you're self-employed You're not restricted by location Why don't you go somewhere and study Arabic or something And I literally thought I thought about it And you know there was nothing stopping me So I literally made the decision I told my parents I booked a flight I found out from the brothers where I can live Expenses how much I need to save up And just made the decision No, alhamdulillah It's actually amazing Because now that you say it When I was in my first year in Alex, Alexandria There was a brother who was a graphic designer by profession as well His website is StrictlySunaDesigns.com And I got inspired by him when it comes in terms of Because I always thought like This brother he was there like for years Like I think at that time it was In between 5 and 10 years And I was amazed I was like how does he even manage to You know to just stay here and not go back and work and this and that And at that time I was 19 So I was kind of like and I was married already So I had to hustle it out So I got inspired by that brother You know I started working a little bit with him Like you know getting inspired Even paying him to do some of those works That I used to use for my business etc But yeah that's nice man I'm going to contact this brother and send him the interview inshallah So shout out to Abu Mustafa Anyway so Taib so let me ask you a question right Before you once you decided that you want to learn Arabic Now let's make clear that you never had other than You know the little studies with the GCSE What is it? G-C-S-E? G-C-S-E yeah G-C-S-E uh studies Yeah if you were to think about the Ben Yadik curriculum Uh uh when I got to Egypt I started from book one part two So uh you know so I passed the I knew that stuff and I knew a few words that's it Okay alhamdulillah So but you never had like your parents are not Arab And you know you went from literally native English In speaker to start into learning Arabic Okay so once you decide to to you know that okay I need to learn Arabic I want to learn Arabic And you find a place to learn Arabic in this case Egypt What was the the feelings like was you afraid of something? Yeah uh I think a lot of brothers when they when they go abroad they have this misconception that As soon as you get on the flight You're coming from a place from from London from New York from America from the UK Anywhere from the western world and as soon as you get on the flight You land in Cairo and now suddenly you're going to become Talib al-A'ilm and you're going to you know you're going to put 100% in And you're going to be very pious you're going to be praying Qiyam every night A lot of others had this misconception and I quickly realized like a day or two in When I met the brothers who were living in my flat and stuff That uh it's not too different to real life like you can't have this Misconception in your in your mind that suddenly you're going to become a different person Yeah you have to be yourself in order to realize what you can gain No definitely uh this this is crazy because in I mean it happens you know a lot of brothers They even myself when I first got to Egypt I was like man I'm going to a Muslim country And you know yeah yeah yeah you know it's really you have the Azzan you have but many many many Different things is worse than than even the United Kingdom I would say like there is a Brothers Allah he's in Qatar right now shout out to Abu Hanifa He used to tell me like my Iman is higher in London because I'm busy with Dawah and I'm Busy teaching I'm busy this and I'm busy that and you know then then Egypt actually Yeah That happens to me a few times as well This is the same thing that you're you're with you're with your group of brothers and you go to the Masjid for for Salah and you you can play it but the vibe the the feeling that you get in London with your community in your masjid you can sit in the front row with your boys drinking a Cup of coffee. It's not the same. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. This is why a lot of This is good that we're talking about this because a lot of people they think that I can only become fluent in Arabic or I can only learn Arabic if I go to an Arab country Or if I go to you know somewhere like Egypt or somewhere like Mauritania or somewhere like that And the reality is that I've met many many different brothers Literally from the beginning like I only know Arabic from them and they are obviously from the UK for example one example is in Birmingham once I was walking in the street I was selling at that time like selling in the street And this brother came to me apparently he said that he He smelled from me that I wasn't from there. I think I was wearing sanders sandals or something And it was probably like sand or on it or something like that And he came to me. Assalamu alaikum. You know your Arabic is really good. Where are you with these studies? I'll study here in In Birmingham. I was like wow You know, so uh, so definitely, I mean it's Like Taliban and you know learning Arabic is It's not restricted by a place or by a location. You can learn it anywhere My personal opinion is that that the location You can be it can be done anywhere The the the location can accelerate your learning So if you go to Egypt, for example, or you go to anywhere any other Arab speaking Arabic speaking country You have the chance to accelerate that learning, but it no means no means does it does it? You know to mean that you can't learn it anywhere else Yeah, definitely and sometimes it might even It might it might like Make your learning slower Yeah, because a lot of brothers they I know many many brothers they got to To uh, I mean it wasn't a point where myself I speak French, you know, there is a French community in Egypt I speak English. There's the uk and the us community. I speak uh, Spanish come that I wasn't no I was I meant like two Spanish brothers five years being in Egypt But the thing is that many times I wouldn't I wouldn't say I speak French or I wouldn't say I speak English Because many brothers they get so used to talking to you in English and at the end of the day It just feels like you you're back home You you don't do anything else than speaking English But definitely when you very very quickly in my flat as well very quickly we said We said early Arabic speaking after a week. We're all speaking English. No problem It's it's like you're back normal living. So yeah, it does you're learning down a lot My main advice all the time for Brothers coming new it was to to stick with the African brothers Or the Arab brothers like the Libyan the You know just they're eating from Algeria. Someone who can't speak the same language as you. Yeah, exactly To struggle with them like oh That was really really good. I mean that helped me a lot Okay, so before knowing Arabic, right? Can you can you name? Three daily frustrations that you had as a you know, normal muslim as a from an islamic perspective um Number one would be not understanding the quran That's that's that was a massive frustration. You're praying to lawi You're you're standing behind the imam for one half hours two hours and you don't understand the word he's saying And it makes no sense. He gets tired as well Yeah, exactly. Um, so that's number one number two um I Number two. I didn't have any languages behind me. Uh, I speak English. I'm from a Pakistani background But um, I mean I can understand Punjabi and Urdu, but I can't speak them Because I just grew I grew up in a English speaking household So so I I didn't have any languages, you know in my portfolio. No And um, and the third thing was I don't know Yeah, I can't really think of a third one at the moment Yeah, I think I think it's like so general when it comes to being a muslim you There's always little frustrations when it comes to like, you know, obviously understanding the quran sometimes you might have a question and and And some books are not even translated to English or the information is limited online as well And you can't even call by yourself a scholar You know and things like that and I'm not saying that there's only scholars who speak, uh, you know, arabic But uh, but you know, sometimes you might need something related to I don't know go into an arabic country or something like this Something that only a narrow person can can answer Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's definitely frustrating sometimes so Frustration actually would would be that I hadn't traveled much Like I've been I've been to visit family other places in the world, but I haven't really traveled. I hadn't really traveled I hadn't been outside of my house, uh, you know by myself For a long period and so that was probably a third one So what what what okay, so you're 23 right now in 2017 You was 21 when you went to Egypt Yeah, okay So, how do you find the country by the way? Just living there as a normal life. It's very it's very yeah, you get very mixed feelings like, uh You you feel the vibe that you you got the other and then you got a masjid every two minute walk And you've got friends and things are cheap You can buy a really nice thing for really low prices. You can go you can go places and you can save a lot of money No, but then there's there's the other side of Egypt that I'm sure a lot of people who've been to Egypt know Where you know, you have the hassle of dealing with shopkeepers and taxi drivers And you've got people shouting in the street and you've got you know You have the little children who have no respect and you know stuff All right, these kids man. Wow I was I was working with my wife with my wife ones. I had to grab one of these kids and You know, let him know yo Bro, I'll slap the heck out of you. I don't give you a kid. What's your father? But uh, yeah, that's something that if you go there with uh with a With a like western mentality You know, I'm just saying that you you Because I'm not a violent person like, you know, I'm definitely a violent person. Yeah, but subhanallah there like I was My blood was always boiling for different things While I was there within a couple of months I had developed like a proper angle problem I would I try to you know Not show it, but you know every little thing that would happen Taxi driver would say, you know, you didn't pay for this and you told me to take you to this place But you're taking me to this place and you know It would bore your blood. It was it would get you really angry This is by subhanallah after being five for five years in egypt First of all, what you said is is crazy like you get to a point where Where you become a harsh person because you feel like this is the only way of being in this country and you know survive it So that that that's one and the second thing that I didn't like about there is that I was I was super Protected over my wife and sometimes it will get to the point where Where you basically caught her off everything like you don't let her go outside. You don't want her to You know answer the door because you don't trust anyone And I've been there for five years and coming to more itania And seeing the respect of the children and seeing You know like the taxi driver asking you like how much are you willing to pay before you even jump on the taxi? Or for example, giving him money and he's like no, no, you're giving me too much. There you go. That's that's your changers I'm like, yeah, I'm staying here. I don't care. I don't care And uh, yeah, that's completely different Many times he messes up with your studies as well, you know in egypt Subhanallah once they they tried to steal my my bike, but the thing there is that Okay, I do I don't have a problem if you come to me and And you try and rub me with a knife Like a man kind of thing quoting quoting below. Yo, give me your your motorbike But there what I don't like is this This mechanic boy He was like, yeah, don't worry. I asked him subhanallah I used to trust him. I used to go to him. He was cool and everything So I asked him, can you do the the number plate for me? He was like, yeah, I want to do the number plate for you No, no, no, no worries bring 600 junei bring the motorbike and bring the paperwork and you're in a photocopy of your passports I brought it to him On a monday. I think it was he said come back on thursday. You will have it inshallah Next thing you know, I come back on thursday. He he literally closed his his whole business He left the the place For a bike. I'm like what? He literally left the place. I asked the people the the business next to it. I said, where's ridah He said, uh, no, he said he was leaving to uh to another place So I asked them. What is the the neighborhood? They said al-waha al-waha is just behind ashir So I was okay. He's in waha. Okay. I'm I'm going to al-waha. Okay. I'm a I'm a I'm a drive around the whole waha and I found him subhanallah And he was so dodgy like when I found him he his eyes you can see You know the fear he was oh like and then I seen my bike with a bunch of stickers on it Like Completely changed, you know, and I was like Yo, yeah ridah and he was like Since that day, I didn't see him back until after two years And I took my bike that day. I didn't take the 600 pounds And I used to see to see him from from time to time and I was like, yo, what's up? I'm not I'm not a violent person and I wouldn't I wouldn't fight for 600 pounds first of all That's like what see six 60 pound And uh, you know, it's no it's no point. Anyways, so I was like Uh, yeah, ridah. How are you, uh, you know, where's the where's the money and isn't that? He would have a lot. I'm sorry. Y'all I'm gonna bring you the other head head head, you know Because you focus on studies. You're not trying to Busy your your head with this And uh, and yeah, one day I just had to I seen him that day I had to grab him and alhamdulillah. There was the police around police came and put some pressure on him He gave me 400 pounds Then the police officer was uh, let's just forgive him forgive him You know, if you're right and he's like forgiven his heart But you know, I always say that being if you if you spend successfully one year in egypt living You are definitely, you know, you get the the certified Diploma of patience, you know, yeah That's true. I think I think it's important to Let people know as well that this is specifically not so city And yeah in other in other places, you don't you don't find the same Sheda with the with the characteristics Like where for example, I would say maybe rehab Places like this Yeah, rehab is a lot. It's a lot calmer, but it's a lot more expensive Right. So and and and you you don't get the same vibe Not so city you do get all of this nasty nasty Character that you find on the street But at the same time you don't you get really good teachers and you get very good brothers and you got really nice massages The vibe in the street is just completely different It's pros and cons. You have to weigh them out. Yeah, that's definitely the The case because I mean if you're trying to study you definitely have to be around nasa city Aishir And you have to hustle out with you know with all of these these people But uh, it's true that I'm not trying to it's definitely it was definitely a life-changing experience And alhamdulillah that you have Remind me of that because I I'm not trying to You know unmotivate anyone from going to egypt and learn because I believe From by far is the best place to to learn arabic And it's a life experience as well, you know to be able to be Around around people like this sometimes you need to La buddhan taalama shar hatta taalama khair, you know, you need to know the bad. So, you know the good So, yeah, I'm sorry that I get so passionate when talking about egypt Yeah Now before I went I spoke to a lot of brothers a lot of brothers from london go a lot of brothers and uh And I spoke to one brother Many brothers and they they always say that going to egypt was the best time that they had in their life Uh, and and I thought they're over exaggerating or something like that But after being there and after coming back I can I can say that it's it's definitely been the best period that I've ever experienced because the amount of experience and That's just the joys of traveling and studying Studying uh big there and also having things other things to do in terms of leisure and play And entertainment It's just uh, like a a complete package. You you get a real good experience Yeah, definitely. I can say as well that it was The best five years of my life as well You know just the because of the change that are That are how I grew as a person And learned as well and you know or everything that I have accomplished definitely was the best the best but at the same time You know the the the the words, you know, I mean, but how do you like pace out of it pace off? Okay, so going back to to the subject people might be thinking like Are we talking about arabic or are we talking about life experiences? But uh, yeah, but it comes all together when we're going to egypt So uh, so what was the turning point for you when you When you was like, okay, I need to learn arabic now. Was it like a specific thing that happened in your life? Or was it like gradually? uh It was there. Yeah, there wasn't anything There wasn't a turning point like that Like I said because I was free in terms of uh, my employment I wasn't tied down to anything and my my income is you know It it's just uh dependent on my laptop So there wasn't a turning point where I said, okay now I'm going to leave my job And I'm going to do this and I'm going to sell my house and I'm going to move to Egypt. It wasn't like that I'm living with my parents. I've got You know low expenses. I've got uh my laptop that I do my business on so when the brother said to me Uh, why don't you you know go go abroad and study arabic? It was like um Okay, let me try it. No, was he like uh like uh Like a og person in the masjid or like experience brother Or was he just like one of your boys? No, no. Yeah, it's one of my boys. He's it was just um, uh a very close brother of mine. Um, who he he went to He tried to go to Egypt to study arabic back in 2016 17 But his parents wouldn't let him because of uh, they thought it was unsafe So he ended up going to, uh, Morocco for a few months Um, he found a he found an institution where he could uh enroll his wife and his kids Uh, so he studied in Morocco for a few months and then came back to the uk And he was just trying to convince as many brothers as he could to go abroad and study arabic Oh, okay. Is it is he Is he abu um abut amim? No, abut amim, uh, his name's selaj Okay, okay, masha'Allah so um Okay, so let's get a little bit into the method uh, that you got that you, you know that you used to uh, to learn arabic Uh in that particular year First of all, what markers do you go to? I didn't study any markers Oh, okay. You're a private teacher or something I'm a private teacher, yeah Yeah, okay. Yeah, so what was the method he used to to use for to teach you guys? so Uh, in in my time there, I I had uh, three different teachers Uh for for my main arabic my first teacher, uh, sheikh majdi and He uh, he was he was very good. Masha'Allah like excellent. Um, he's one of the og's, you know There was there was a few teachers in marcus fadjah Like back in the day and they basically left fadjah and started their own institution sheikh majdi So I got there. He gave me a little test to see what level I'm on and uh, we started from uh, book one part two of ben yadik curriculum And and our our methodology was we had a two hour lesson every day Uh, he would he would give me two hours of homework every day just at the beginning so I could ease into it so, um My understanding was very poor. I couldn't really understand what he was saying because he only speaks arabic He wouldn't speak english So we would have to use pictures and we would we would just have it would it was a very, uh Difficult situation at the start for the first month or two because I couldn't really understand what he was saying but um, a lot of people they get cold feet at the start and uh, give up but um, I think it's important to know that Uh, within you know, six weeks seven weeks It goes very fast very fast seven eight weeks And and and suddenly you realize that you're starting to pick up words and you're starting to understand what the teacher's saying Even if you don't understand what the teacher is saying like you don't know the meaning of the word You can you know get an understanding of the sentence that he's saying to you. Yeah So, uh, yeah, so for the first, um, about four months um, I had uh, sheikh majdi for two hours a day for arabic And uh, you know, he was he was quite easy with the homework and stuff No, and then about three four months in I decided to get a supplementary teacher Uh For for speaking So so I got a second teacher He would come to my flat um I think for one hour twice a week Okay. Yeah One hour twice a week and he developed his own his own supplementary curriculum to the benyadik series. So he had Book one which had a little bit of a test with all the afaaal all the asma You have to fill in all the tables. You have to put in the maadi mudare Um, and you have to put in for the asma You have to put the jam and the you know all the singular and everything like that So so he would give me all this homework. He would be Shadeed Shadeed with the homework like very very Very Shadeed with the homework To the point where what was the homework was it memorized in the afaaal in the in the vocabulary? Yeah, so yeah, so for the afaaal As soon as he would come to the lesson we would have a list of maybe 300 verbs And for the first 10 minutes of the lesson it would be a drill You're saying all afaaal maadi mudare amr and the mustar and the fa'il mafrool For each verb for all 300 verbs within 10 minutes. You have to go bang bang bang bang without any mistakes No, and and that process. Wow that process strengthened It pays off Amazing That's that's exactly the same The same method. I mean that I think that's the best method ever like Yeah, absolutely. It's memorizing these conjugations. It just gives you crazy vocabulary No, absolutely If you break down your sentence A lot a lot of what you say maybe 50 percent or more is is uh comes from verbs No, no probably more than probably 75 percent Yeah, the rest is just prepositions and And uh names Yeah So, uh So what would you say after a year of this of this intense? So this was only for the first six months Okay, that was for this month. Yeah. Yeah for the second six months. I changed teacher Because the first one wasn't available anymore. Um, so in the second six months It was a bit more than six months. It was probably about eight nine months I changed my teacher to Ostad Hisham and Wow amazing teacher amazing teacher. He's he he was a young teacher. So he we we had a link The first couple of teachers they were you know in the mid early 40s mid 40s, maybe But this teacher he's he's in his late 20s. So we had a connection. We could we could talk about anything So we started with three hour lessons every single day and And we started with the baini ad-dic series Then we started with the az-ramia for nahoo and then we started the even sarud um curriculum as well for for nahoo and and saff Just filling in the text So in a three hour lesson the first hour because we had a very good connection the first hour would be taken up with You know, what did you do last night? Where did you go? What did you eat? um Then we would start we'd go on the you know completely Different tangent we would start talking about things back home and you know It had nothing to do with the lesson But I didn't have a problem with it at all because it was all being done in arabic. It's part of my learning So so a lot of people would actually think i'm paying this teacher, but we're just having a chat But in my mind it's still uh, it'll be very good to be learning It is it is worth it. It is worth it. Okay, so I'm sure now that you can I'll Okay Me Uh I spoke about 9 or 10, but this was after a lot of feedback and a lot of training, but if I thought that I would be back, I could fail. I think this method, I haven't seen anyone who went through this method who haven't become, if done correctly, who haven't become fluent. Because this is what I call fluent in Arabic in one year. You're able to understand the average conversation, maintain a conversation, pick a book and read literally one page and maybe not know one, two, three words. But, Alhamdulillah, be able to go to, because of the way you study it, like conjugations and everything, you're able to take for example a dictionary and be like, okay, what is this word mean? Nassara, what does Nassara mean? So you go Nassara, Nassara Yansuru, I mean the one who speaks Arabic, okay, I understand this now. So Nassara Yansuru, let me see, is it Nassuru or Yansuru or is it Yansara? And then by this method, it not only gives you the tools of finding what you don't know, but it gives you super strong foundations in terms of vocabulary. And now when you go into grammar, you can actually sit down in front of a teacher and let him explain you the class in Arabic. Instead of saying, you know, syntax of the sentence, he actually says, you know. So Alhamdulillah, I'm super glad that I have the opportunity to interview you because these eyes open for a lot of people. And I've seen people going through other programs like, you know, in Marques Al Furqa or Marques Al Iban or Marques, different Marques where they have their own curriculum just to make it seem nice. But sometimes you just need to stick to simplicity man, you know, and to what works and not trying to reinvent the wheel, you know. Yeah, no, with my, with my, the teacher, Shai Osath Hisham, that I had for the second six months, we picked up Ben Yadik Ibn Sa'ud, Azul Amir and all these things. But in terms of following the actual curriculum, it wouldn't, we wouldn't be like, okay, we have to finish chapter one in this, this two weeks. Like, I know so many brothers who came to Egypt, and within eight months, they had finished all four books of Ben Yadik, but they couldn't still hold a simple conversation. There's no point, there's no point in, you know, trying to finish the curriculum when you're not soaking anything in. Yeah, definitely. So literally after, after like 14 months of being there, I had only reached like, you know, halfway through book three or the start of book three. Because we went to, we went to bothered with, with where we reach in the curriculum, as long as what's being taught is really soaking in and you're actually learning something. Yeah, exactly. Even myself from Arabian Ibn Yadik, to be honest, I don't even think I got into book three. I remember in the, in the Americas, I was, it was in Alex, and there were, I think, 14 or 12 mustawayat. And I only got to eight, mustawayat, and then I was, I'm just going to Azul Amir now. Like, I felt, you know, I felt like I had enough vocabulary, but why? I memorized, as you said, I actually memorized all my vocabulary throughout the, you know, all the, the, the text that we, that we done until then. So yeah, definitely. I mean, there's no point in just trying to finish the book to say Masha'Allah and come back to it. Yeah. Okay, so throughout, throughout learning the Arabic language, how many, how moments did you have? Yeah, I, I, I read that question and I was a bit confused. Really? What you meant by, uh-huh. I think it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a way of speaking in, in, in America. So, you know, I'm, Yeah, I know, like, as in there's a light bulb moment, uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if you guys think this much in, in the UK. No, not really. Yeah. So do you have any light up, light up moment where you was like, oh, it's Masha'Allah. There's been, there was probably a few, uh, the first one, uh, is like I said, after the first two months, when you start understanding what your teacher's saying, that's like a real light bulb because you, you understand, oh, like a switch in your, in your brain, you're like, oh, okay, I understand the link between this and this. Oh, I understand. And many times it doesn't happen to you that you be like, okay, now understand this and this and understand all of this that I didn't understand back then. Yeah, no, exactly. You understand one concept and it opens you up to this entire, you know, science. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. So that was the first one. This, this is why as you said, as you said, it's really important that the first month, you actually realize that you will struggle for at least I would say four months into this method. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it will be, it will be, it will be nice after that. Okay, so the first six months in Egypt with those first two teachers, it was, it was hard. It was to study the language. It was, it was difficult because six months go by and you haven't made like much progress at all. And you're thinking, you're thinking, I really hope that my whole year doesn't turn out like this. But then it's like an exponential graph that you start off really slow, but then it goes up and up and up and then it starts going up like that. At one point it just blows up because you understand all of the concepts and it's just about memorizing I would say. Yeah. Okay, so do you enjoy, I mean, I think you only did private classes, but do you ever try group classes? Not for Arabic. I attended a few group classes for, for Tafseed and for Fiqh, but not many sessions. So I don't, I didn't really have any experience at all with group sessions. Oh, okay. So I believe you, I mean, is there any, any reason why you decided to take a private teacher instead of going to America's or taking a group class? Yeah. I mean, in my building, the brothers were about 50-50, 50% of them went to Marca's, 50% of them had private teachers. And I would hear the pros and cons from both of them. The advantages from having group classes is that you have other people, maybe 10 people in your class that you can speak with. But, but in term, in my situation, I had a replacement for that because my teacher was very good with conversational skills. So, so I wasn't missing out on that on that aspect of the group sessions. And with the private sessions, I just found that the one-to-one learning, you get a lot more out of your lesson. If you have three hours of one-to-one with your teacher, you know, have a couple of breaks in that lesson. But, and you have a total control over what's being done in that lesson. I don't have experience in group lessons, but I was thinking maybe in a group lesson, the teacher's going to maybe be focused for 20 minutes on this student and then the next student and then the next student. Yeah. That's what happens. Yeah. It happens a lot. And mainly if you are, I mean people, they have different intentions and they have different levels in terms of learning and how fast they can learn something and understand something as well. And many times it happened to me like I did try both, both in the beginning I did group class for like three months. And yeah, it was in the beginning is good, you know, because you, you know, you get to have that conversation and at the same time it's not too boring. But then once you have that aha moment, as you said, and you start to understand all of this concept and what you should do now in order to literally just, you know, sprint. Then I was like, okay, let me just take a private teacher. Because many times I believe that, you know, you might not relate to this, but having different languages in your brain, it does allow you to understand mainly Spanish because it was, you know, the Arabs and Muslims for 800 years in Spain. So we have a lot of words that comes from Arabic. And so many words and vocabulary was easy for me to understand and pick up, but other brothers, they were like, we were Spain. And obviously the teacher, he doesn't speak Arabic, he doesn't speak English. And, and obviously, you know, you know, just want to be like my bro, like. Yeah, I could relate to that to like a very small extent because of the older and Arab, because a lot of the words the teacher would say it, or even some of the verbs. The teacher would say it and I would think, I know that word already. It was one of those moments. Definitely. So what do you think was the hardest part of learning Arabic? Not being distracted. No. That's the hardest thing. What kind of distractions do you have? Oh, chilling with the bros, man. Like, if you're in Nassau city, then you know, city stars, city stars, the local mall. It's very easy, especially with we had a building of like 30 English brothers. All of us speak English and all of us are the same age and all of us, you know, we can chill. So it's so easy. It's so easy to get distracted and say, okay, forget homework today. We're going out to the restaurant. It's so easy to, we're going to the juice bar. You know, No. No. So how do you get distracted? Yeah, I think when you're married, it's different than when you. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, because imagine you're with 30 brothers unmarried. You know, you're all the same age. You're all chilling. Yeah. It's easy. I remember, I mean, the first three months I was in Egypt, I was with brothers, living with brothers. I completely hated it. Like, I was like, you know, in terms of like, I'm a really like, you know, I have rules in my house. Like, for example, you cannot step in here without your sandals. You can't step here. You know, I'm exactly the same. I'm exactly the same. So yeah, I'm exactly the same way in my flat. There was there was three brothers. But in the in the 12 in the about the 1415 months that I was there, you know, the people that my flatmates changed over a few times. And I would, you know, someone someone would be leaving and then someone would take his place. And someone would recommend this brother. Oh, yeah, this brother's this brother's clean and this brother is a very good character. But then they come to the flat and it's not what you're expecting at all. You know, the bathroom's always in a tip and the kitchen's always got dirty dishes in the sink. And you know, the tiles are always dirty. He never mocks. He never hoovers. He never does it. You know, it might sound like we're just complaining, but it makes a big difference to the environment that you're learning in, especially if you're especially if your teacher's coming to your flat. Yeah. You need you need a clean place. Your teacher can't come to, you know, you're sitting on the dining table having your lesson on this dirty dishes. And you know, leftover chicken boxes on the table. It's many like lion in the whole apartment. Do you have your own room at least? Yeah. No, we had a while. I lived in Menteca Thamina. Okay. It wasn't really Hayat Thamin. And it wasn't really Hail Ashil. It was in the middle. Yeah. So no, we had a good flat three. We had three rooms and a big living room. So we had one bedroom each. Yeah. And I mean, sometimes I want to say like, you know, sometimes it's not even like everyone has habits that for other people, it might be like, oh, this dirty or, you know, for example, I don't know, whatever it might be. Like, like me sometimes, for example, if I'm doing something, I'm not going to wash the dishes right now. I'm just going to leave them there. Even if there's 15 of them and finish my stuff. And then, but you know, when you live with other brothers, it's hard to adapt to everyone's daily habits. You know what I mean? Yeah. Absolutely. So, so the last two questions, the first one is how of an impact has had the learning the Arabic language right now in your life? And how is your life different? Oh, it's like light. It's like night and day, man. It's from from going as the example that I gave about praying, you're standing behind the Imam praying and you don't understand the word that he's saying. And changing that into a situation where you're praying behind him and you understand 90% of what he's saying. It makes a massive difference. The connection between you and the Quran and you and Allah and your Imam is just an experience that you can't get anywhere else. No, definitely. And what would your advice be for someone that acknowledges the importance of learning the Arabic language? However, he didn't start yet for whatever reason. Oh, there's nothing holding you back. I actually, one of the brothers who's, you know, he works with the Quran markers. Yeah, he gave me a call yesterday. He's saying, how's your, how's your Murajah going and how's your hip going? And I said, you know, I've been struggling a bit. I haven't really, you know, kept up with my hip. And he said, there's nothing holding you back. If you if you if you plan to make a plan to make a plan, you're never going to get around to it. Just make the plan now. Make your plan to stop. And that's exactly the same with the Arabic with Arabic within the past year and two years and three years. There's been so many teachers from Egypt that have have taken up the platform to teach online. No. Yeah, there's so many teachers now. There's so many teachers. And I think that our lives might be busy in the Western world, but all of us can take out even an hour a week. All of us take our hour a week to have a lesson. And even if the an hour a week, it's not a lot. It's not a lot at all. But at least there's something. So for all you know, you could start with an hour a week. And after four weeks, you might decide to, you know, I'm enjoying this. So I'm going to up it to one hour every three days, then one hour every day. And then it's going to develop to a stage where, you know, a year down the line, two years down the line, you might decide, okay, it's time for me to go abroad and study full time. No, definitely, definitely. Yeah, that's a very good advice, man. I think that everyone, I mean, it's one of the reasons why, you know, under Andalus Institute, we focus on teaching people online. And, you know, by the way, I just want to let people know if they're actually interested by learning the Arabic language to check out the link we have in the description where I share with you guys my case study, basically, of how I went from zero to fluent in Arabic in 10 months with one single book and one hour per day. And that single book is Arabic, I think. So, yeah, I highly recommend them to check that out if they are looking to start as soon as possible. And yeah, thank you very much, man. No. I'll see that. We'll see. For your time and sharing this story with us. And there's many things that we can say about, you know, studying the Arabic language and mainly studying the Arabic language in Egypt. But, you know, we have limited time. So sorry for the viewers. And I would recommend them to subscribe to the channel for the upcoming different how I learn stories, how I learn Arabic stories. And, yeah, we'll conclude with this and we'll finish the interview. So, it's zaqabullah khair. Ya, Zafir. Wassalamu alaikum. Wa Rahmatullah. Wa Rahmatullah. Wa Rahmatullah. Wa Rahmatullah. Wa Rahmatullah.