 الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله أما بعد السلام وعليكم ورحمة الله تقوم with the viewers شبرا محمد here with back at it again with another how I learned Arabic stories interview slash conversation and now here with my brother Faisal all the way from Holland and insha'Allah today he's going to share with us how he learned Arabic and we're going to be exchanging some nice words insha'Allah for the next 45 to one hour so tune in insha'Allah and let's get started so insha'Allah first of all I would like to say salamu alaikum to the brother Faisal السلام عليكم ورحمة الله ورحمة الله محمد الحمد لله كيف أنت؟ الحمد لله أنا مخير إن شاء الله طيب إن شاء الله so what I want from you now I just want some context and some you know some little background by yourself and a little bit by yourself are perfect that's no problem so I'm 24 years old I'm from Somali background I do have a bit of Yemeni somewhere but most Somalis have that my grandma is actually my grandma is Yemeni so basically I was born here in Holland raised here I lived about 2 years in Birmingham I moved there for about 2 years but after that I returned back to Holland so basically I just grew up here in Holland and I'm studying IT right now this is 2 years university and study computer science and that's what I do my daily life study and teach Arabic right now مشاء الله طيب that's nice I'm actually so I'm actually interested about the IT as well just to know about it because I remember you know I'm always but yeah obviously I'm not going to ask you in this interview how about inshallah we'll talk about it طيب على كل حال um طيب so so how do you learn Arabic that's the main question that's the main question basically how it all started was when I was like 16 I was trying to about 16 when I was 16 to 17 I started practicing before that I wasn't really practicing and then when I started practicing just like it's very similar to this part of the story it's very similar to the story of Nostiha because I listened to her interview as well how she said like it was a drum into us that like as soon as you like become religious you're supposed to study the Quran right it's like it's like it's like a program inside of you you go to Duxia exactly because before I used to go to Duxia before that when I was in France I used to go to Duxia but it was more of a force you know it was a force the one I was 16 exactly when I was 16 years old I was going to Duxia I was memorizing like half of this I'm not the first head but then again it was not a choice I didn't really like it so when I eventually I stopped going there and when I was 17 when I decided like okay now I want to actually like learn stuff I want to become perhaps I want to start praying I want to start doing the things that I'm supposed to do then I started memorizing automatically I was like okay now I'm going to start today then I started and I was starting you know when people start reading what's that called like the phonetic script you know the English script exactly so I had this to money and I used to every week I used to like I started I started with sort of fat having a class and then he noticed every time I was reading I was making major mistakes and like one day he was like why don't you just learn Arabic no I was like that I was like is that option you know is that even possible he was like why don't you just learn because you're making mistakes every time I was making like because the the phonetic script doesn't have any tujubi rules in the minute so it doesn't have to fit to you make you're going to make tujubi rules even if you're the best English reader you're going to make it to do yes so I'll make you make you mistakes and make it your life you should just learn Arabic you should just start then what happened what just happened very interesting we had the doocy it wasn't actually in a mosque it was at someone's house and the owner of the house he was like come here sit with me and he said he's just the owner of the house he's just after the class he came I'm going to teach you how to read Arabic so I'm like alright cool let's just do this the only thing he did is he learned how to read any bad tab and then when I saw that I was like this is so easy that's the whole Arabic little bit yeah he just he just learned me the first few and how to connect it with the حركات and I was like this is how it works and I was like oh this is actually pretty easy it's not even hard so I started doing it by myself وننتظر إلى مدينة ونسألت بسرعة وما ساعدني في هذا العدد قمت بحيث أنه أول ماعلم لقد كانت only Arabic أردت أردت محاليات لأنه أردت مراركين وكانت فقط مراركين أردت مراركين فالمرارب المعارب يتكلمون هنا لأنهم يأتيون من مراركين وكانت فكرة أكثر من تكلمون أردتهم لأنه عندما أمرأت أجل أصدها أنه يقوم بعمل في مدينة المدينة، ويغلق على مدينة المدينة ويصلك على مدينة تستطيع إفتاقات ما انت في الواسف لذا اتعلموا انها مدينة المدينة ولكن اعرفتها في الأسفل في الواسف واتفعلها كما فعلنا وقد فعلت كثيرا من الواسف يجب ان تطلب أسئلية المسألية المتحدة لأنها مجد من التفاق وقد تقوم بعمل مدينة المدينة ولم يبدأ هل أنت لن تتعلم بشكل كبير ؟ هل أنت لن تتعلم بشكل كبير ؟ هل أنت لن تتعلم بشكل كبير ؟ even though you could but most of the times when you by yourself you tend to to want to do a bunch of things so yeah yeah I didn't want to cut you but for those who don't know what Duxy is because to be honest the first time I heard about it is with Nastecha so for those who don't know what Duxy is is a Quranic school for in the Somali dialect I guess and then I wanted to add to what you said in terms of the phonetic you know memorizing the Quran in a phonetic way I did that for like a few سور before I went to Egypt for the you know and the short ones and then I went to Egypt I had this Libyan teacher and I started reciting what I knew and he was like is that even Quran what is that what are you reciting and it was by myself you skipped the whole مخارج الحروف it's just like English alphabet Arabic words doesn't make sense it's crazy as well because my parents mainly my mom she's Spanish she accepted Islam like years ago basically but what she knows is at the age you know the du'as in in phonetic so she would say like whatever you know when I was younger my father would say like if this happens to you then say this and he will give me something and I'm like what the heck does that even mean and then when I learned Arabic I came back and I would hear my parents say that and it would be something completely different so this is a big transformation this is a big warning to those who are starting out don't you ever try and memorize anything in phonetical you know I mean in phonetical it's something like people think it's like a blessing when the books came out in Holland and it's like they have this just عما and it's like but it keeps you behind because if you memorize in that way as well it's hard to remove it out of your head it's like being addicted to something and being hard to to remove it anyways I wanted to ask you before you started when you decided that you wanted to learn Arabic before you started what was the main frustrations that you was experiencing not knowing Arabic the main frustrations to be honest not understanding دعالة was very annoying because you learned دعالة then the Dutch translation the main I'm telling you that the two main frustrations that I ever had was one I remember the first time ever my whole life I opened sort of a Quran in Dutch I remember it like today I started reading the Quran I was just like from today I'm going to learn what's in this book I opened it up and I opened the Dutch translation we had this book at home and I opened it up and I read it and I didn't understand anything literally not one sentence that's what I said yesterday to the brother in Hanif I tried reading it in Spanish actually and I didn't understand anything yeah and I was like this sentence is coming back two times is there something wrong with this translation because I have to repeat so I repeat and it looks like it looks a lot and it comes back a couple of times almost the same as I and then I read it and I was like did I just find out that this sentence so I was checking the I in Dutch it said the same thing here I remember like I was like I want to understand this but I can't it's like I couldn't understand as well so that was a big reason for me to be Arabic and I remember when I finished I was I was just ran and listening to the Sa'adi and I was just learning a bit more of the meanings and then I was like I remember it said like the subject and then you see the structure and I was like this structure I could never I would see if I read it in Dutch I could never even you have to be a genius to be able to see that no no no no especially in the beginning as you see it's about the Mu'mini and then it's about the description of the disbelievers and then about the description of مرافق and then in Dutch I could never see that I couldn't see it so that was a big frustration not understanding and I have this thing in me which I hate the feeling that when I don't understand something it makes me very irritated so I like to understand but I have this thing I need to understand so do you memorize Quran as well yeah I memorize I started when I was 17 and finished for right now but we've had like because we're in the west we don't have like there's not many there's no مراكس or something it's just like Imam is in MSG and you just ask him to teach you and he teaches you and then Imam usually just go away after 6 months right and then yeah then you start over and find a new teacher after 3 months so I did that for like the past 7 years so I remember I used to I learned to talk to him but I could have gone way faster I have a teacher right now he's got an Ijaz and a Qara'a the 10 Qara'a and I'm studying with him right now so you you are more or less around فرقان yesterday I'm from I mean فرقان so you actually went back to and you just started from فرقان yeah when I finished I was like I can take the challenge so hard and I can do this when I finished I was like this is nice I like long ayat it's more easy to memorize yeah that's true it's like people say it's way harder but because when I learned the grammar I could just feel like I was gonna and I know this I know this so it's very easy to memorize long ayat فرقان I remember when I was in Al-Azhar right? in Fakr 2 of Sharia and we had to memorize but I was memorizing I was going to America what I mean the most from Egypt is that America is a haramain so for whoever who's whoever who's listening to this and is going to Egypt if you wanna place to memorize Quran the haramain is in the 9th place what city if you go to if you are in Mustafa Al-Nahas coming from from down the city from down time basically going up towards Al-Ashir you get to Akhir Al-Metro in Akhir Al-Metro you take a right and you ask for Masjid Al-Haramain that Masjid as well it's really exclusive basically they will choose you basically but yeah I was going there and they tell you to start from Juz Amma because it's harder and then it gets easier and so I went back to the sheikh and I said I have exams in the university I need to memorize Surah Al-Baqara I can go to Surah Al-Baqara and then come back he said no no no you can you can you can then Alhamdulillah to let me do it but he said ok you memorize by yourself you go memorize in the markets and then you come back so I memorized that Surah Al-Baqara and I was memorizing the long ayat which is basically stories as long as you understand what's going on and I was like it's easy it's way easier than if you understand you can follow the structure the second ayat is probably about this you can like feel it and then he did this and then if you just follow the story basically exactly I agree 100% it becomes easier so how do you manage obviously you was young so I guess you was living in your parents house was you going to school at the same time working? yeah I was going to what actually happened I was studying I was in a high school that's high school and that's when I started with the Arabic alphabet and as soon as I went to the university what happened is there was a time frame where I was I had a year between off and in that year I just did everything I could do so that year I went full time almost so what I did is I finished at the beginning of the first book the end of the first Medina book and at the second book and the third book and at the same time I was listening every day so I was listening and what helped me a lot was I listened a lot to the The Roots of Shif and Artemi on YouTube so I listened to the cast that recorded and I just like so I just finished random so I didn't really care what I was listening to if it was the studio or if it was like if it was like I was just listening to it doesn't matter so I even listened to the random to the I was just listening to that just following the conversation so I listened to that a lot so as soon as that like it kicked starting as soon as I could understand what they were saying the other stuff wasn't so hard so that was a major so what I also used to do was buy books which were like with the cast that recorded which I could find the cast that recorded on YouTube so some of the examples you could find like the audio was in the same space as the book itself so you can read it a lot so you're saying that there's channels where they teach the full book basically or they have uploaded all the The Roots of Dimash so I used to there's a channel on YouTube it's called like I think it's something called and then it has like a playlist of like everything so I used to listen to random like like a random bab I was interested in which it didn't really interest me what I was saying to as long as I would find interesting enough to listen doesn't matter what book what level I would just listen to and I would just like do that a lot so I did that like a lot and also a second thing it's more of an advanced stage it's somebody advised me to listen to this thing called ألفو ليلة و ليلة what is it ألفو ليلة و ليلة it's like an Egyptian radio okay it's like an Egyptian radio show and it's like they speak in فصحة and they tell stories of like 1000 known Arabian nights and they tell the stories and it's in فصحة and the conversations are so cool which makes it like help me a lot but that's like this year I didn't do that before before I was listening to a lot of cassette recorders trying to look up words using if I check my favorite like most visited website it said like the المعاني yeah I always go to that one المعاني exactly so right now if I check my thing it says this website called context reversal which like gives you like English words instead of the Arabic ones and like المعاني which I mostly use so yeah so what would be what would be the three main things that has helped you the most to become fluent in Arabic right now as in understanding reading I would say staying like in connection with the language it's very important I see many people they follow me for example I learned Arabic not so much in a classroom right I learned in a classroom because I was found that my teacher speaks in Arabic so of course that's that part but the نحو and stuff I didn't teach from the beginning stage of نحو that was not for the teacher so what helped me a lot was the main three things that you say it helped it helped you to to become fluent you know so first thing was like staying consistent which is like a major thing I was like when I always had a rule is I'm never going to stop learning Arabic so it was like and I count like lots of things in Arabic when I say I'm studying I see it as doing Arabic I'm like okay I'm doing I'm staying connected with Arabic I'm still learning so it was like I had this rule which was like whatever you do can you make sure you're in the middle of the frame okay wait let me just try this the iPhone so like like that yeah exactly so there was a rule which was like I have to stay I have to keep on doing stuff in Arabic alright I will never stop and another thing that helped me was like is like that I had to I always I never made it boring I always make sure like I was motivated enough so for example when I learned when I was for example what motivated me a lot for example is when I learned a lot of new words and then I started learning the Quran again and then I was like wow I understand so much more I need the small more person because learning Arabic it makes you feel like one day you feel like I can't I don't know anything it's a very weird feeling like one day you read a book and you're like I can speak Arabic I'm fluent and the next day you'll see poetry and you're like I can't speak Arabic I don't know any Arabic but these like in English as well I mean if you read a book in I don't know in neuro neuro linguistics you'll be like oh I don't understand English but then if you read a book on the story of whatever you know exactly so that keep yourself motivated it's a very important you have to keep yourself motivated and I always tend to for example what I'm doing right now I asked the Imam if I could translate the Khutbah for him so I translated the Khutbah now and I was translating for a while for the last couple of weeks I was translating two Khutbahs at the same time so I would send one off and the last three ones I did it myself so the small things they help a lot because it just forces you to just learn more about the vocabulary so I would just even though I was in the market I would always make sure that enough to do so that's something that's something definitely that can and the third is like immerse yourself you have to immerse yourself just throw yourself in it I said like like was that right now I'm going to show you like I have like notes right here and like my notes is just written in Arabic so I do that I make sure that I'm using it I'm making sure that I'm staying connected with it I work for once I work all the time I change my whole YouTube language I change my phone language I set myself every kind of entertain which I'm going to involve myself it has to be something with Arabic and the reason why I was asking you that is because you said you used to listen a lot is because what I give to my students in the beginning of the program once they join I make sure that they have this hanged up or on their wall and it basically says that there's only three things that matters throughout your whole journey there's only three things that matters memorizing new vocabulary hearing it being used and using it yourself this is what I was trying to see if you would say the same thing because what you said is this but a little bit more like specific and I mean it comes down to this as you said to immerge yourself memorizing and using it yourself and I mean that's something that I was nervous about in the beginning when I went to Egypt I was like how am I going to stand the teacher experience something if I don't know Arabic and he only knows Arabic how is that going to happen but I mean you know this is exactly how I learned French as well exactly how I learned English it's just how you learn that's true that's 100% true I actually experienced this myself but when I finished the middle books you lack a lot of vocabulary when you finish it still you lack a lot of vocabulary because if you go through it like me I went through it fast I like the fast method just like doing like three lessons all the time going very fast with the vocabulary and you're like wait I don't know about the vocabulary yeah I think that the Medina books I I've looked I didn't study them myself I studied Arabic but we used to have like students from the in Medina they used to come to Egypt in summertime because they said it's not enough like Medina books is not enough for us and I mean I've seen it myself what about even students who finished the three books of Medina and still can't talk yeah that's 100% that's 100% something because I teach the Medina books right now and I'll just say this is the book it's not going to help you talk there's stuff that you learn from there's stuff you don't you have other sources that you're learning from أثناء كذلك و العسوء الجيد أن يتكلمون ما يتكلمون و كيف أفعل هذا المفتاح؟ يوجد لأنه لا يوجد أيضا مجددا يجب أن تستخدمه الآن ولكن يجب أن يتكلمون و يجد أن يتكلمون إذا كنت تعتقد أنه من أمام هذه الأشياء أنت ستكون وتفعلها لا تحدث أذن في أشياء الأشياء سأعود أن أخبر أجل حسنا كانت من when you started all the way until you was like oh I actually understand now and can use it that's a very good question I think that was I wasn't in the beginning phase I wasn't very consistent but I can I know verse what happened to me what happened with me was when I finished the first in a book as soon as I as that year I had off I took the year off in the university that year I put like this for the year I can actually speak Arabic because I was starting to was I was trying to make a lot of friends I started to use every single thing in the year and I was using that and when I was using like a website for translation I felt like I could communicate everything I wanted to at least by typing I could do that so I was talking so much because I think because I think it was the back when I was stuck every day then at that moment like after that was like 3 3 years and I guess but it wasn't 3 years and consistent but I think it was 3 years and that I was like okay now I feel like I can actually like to say anything I want you know so I wouldn't say it takes 3 years because I have friends that I used to do about this and they didn't they could speak in a year they could say anything they wanted yeah definitely I would say if you if you like if you focus on it and you give it a good one hour per day is one year you know but seriously like consistent every day relentless persistent I've seen it no no I've seen it what you're saying right now I've seen it I had a brother who was a convert and what he did literally was okay he was memorizing so he was just converted right and I'm done I think just before I'm like converted and in 6 months you could already communicate like you can start communicate before you knew before you were just converted I could speak in Arabic by tech but he was like I think the main thing right here is that many people think that was wrong I think very hard and I think I can only learn as soon as I go abroad no it's a major no no no so what were the main books that you used throughout your journey okay so the main books I used throughout my journey let me see let me see so basically what I did was I used the Medina Arabic.com website it's a site where you can where they put all the Medina Arabic books digitally on the website I used that to learn how to read once I learned how to read I was starting with the Medina books so I did those fill in all the grammar I needed as soon as I finished that and what I learned from the most was actually then listening to other recordings just listening listening to as much as you can and listening as much as much as you can I don't know how many hours I listened I listened a lot so that was a very good I would never regret that and the thing about listening is people make it you don't have to be correct just put a recording up when you walk from home to the safe when you walk from home to school when you walk from home to just put a recording that's what I used to do when I walk and I go to university just put a recording up just ran them it's better than just like in the structure just put it on try to listen to it if you already learned this specific subject in English or French you have plus one because you know what it's going to talk about so that helps a lot so just listen listen listen listen and after that I actually continued to send it to myself so the first thing I did when I finished the books I sent it to myself it doesn't matter what but I'm going to learn how to read books so I went to the bookshop and I bought a I bought a book I bought a book I bought a book I just bought all the books and then I was like you know what I remember the guy behind the thing in the store he sent me can you read this who's going to explain it to you I was like I can't read it but I will be able to read it next year and he was laughing the guy was laughing he was like how are you going to do this I was like don't worry about me I'm going to do it and the guy behind the chair he said don't mess with this guy he's going to do it he was a Somali actually it's it's a Masjid Rahma it's a Masjid Rahma it's called Masjid Rahma it's a Somali mosque and they have a myth for better and the guy was like he said with two guys and one said how are you going to do this it's pessimistic I was like he's going to do it no no no so basically that year I made for myself I bought this I made this chair I was looking at it I didn't worry and I was laughing people it's not it's only about it's a lot about it's most of it is it's true it's about vocabulary it's about the most I think that's the most is it's vocabulary I'm not going to lie it's the vocabulary it's the like the thing that makes your head like when I when I read that's when I that's when I felt like I learned the most because that moment it was like it says for example I remember one day I was reading I was checking this book I was checking I was reading it it said like this is this it means I don't know I don't know this and that's when you feel like I know I understand this you know what I mean No, no, no yeah so I remember I was like the word twilight I think it's the word twilight again twilight in Arabic it's a word not but it said like it describes the word and then you and then you and then you and then you I know how to understand this even twilight in English I don't even know twilight is like it's like between the red when the sun goes down and you see like the two lights come the light in Arabic it's a word that comes to just I looked it up once and and that's what I know about it anyways that's what that's when I felt like you got me you got me you got me and checking it up in Arabic looking it up in Arabic even that's what I'm doing right now that's currently on my planet right now شهر عبد الحسن has this has this has this yeah شهر عبد الحسن from that's now in Dubai but it used to be in England yeah has this manhaj in learning like a تفسير and he says first you need to learn this book another in مشتركات مشتركات القرآن and then you go to كلمات القرآن تفسير موبيان from محمد حسنين and then it says you need to do تفسير القريب or something but it's all about we need to worship the Quran and I'm doing that right now and it's helping me a lot as well طيب so so obviously all of this journey it was it was quote unquote by yourself I can't actually say that because it's not completely by myself because the last year I started this year beginning this year I started doing نظل أجرومية and I had a teacher that's paying me that but so I memorized I memorized like 70% I think right now and and I started with him and inshallah we're going to finish next month we're going to pick it up again but he's a student that I was in Mauritania as well and I did it with him and we did like the first two babs we did like 12 lessons for just the first 30 bates just the 15 lessons so how does it start how does this rhythm start okay طيب it's like it yeah now so yeah I was just thinking about here in Mauritania it's crazy man they memorize everything they put everything in another and they memorize it but it's the best way to keep all the rules in your head I love it to be honest because right now right now the bates because I teach in Arabic so the bates I already know sometimes I try to like use it in the class even before I know the شرح I know like how we can use it right because I know the Arabic so I'm like okay you want to know the علامات of the I know it and I'll just use another and I'll say okay that's one that's one that's two that's three it helps a lot to be honest plus to teach it as well yeah exactly because if you want to know the علامات you can't memorize all the علامات of all the you can't it's hard to memorize without knowing the other it's easy to know it just to understanding it it's not hard to learn all the علامات to the Arabic but then to be explaining all of them to someone how are you going to memorize that you need a book or if you memorize another it becomes very easy and you just use another no definitely so okay the last two questions how of an impact has had learning the Arabic language in your life that's a very I would say a major impact major impact because it helped me I always wanted to learn how to understand the Qur'an and I felt like there was something like there was like a barrier between reaching that goal that they felt like you can never actually you really understand because I'm not when I say I understand the Qur'an I don't like the people when I say they understand the Qur'an they know the explanation which is not enough for me I want to know the actual meaning of the so many people they when they're like I want to learn the meaning of the Qur'an and what they do is they buy English this year before they even buy an English Arabic book like an Arabic book what I would say what they think I want to learn the meaning of the Qur'an so they just like to see but the fear 10 of all these in English before they even started with any Arabic so I would say my my function was always to learn how to understand the Qur'an and learning Arabic is helping me to to get closer to see that goal like I can see it now you know it's not a dream anymore I can actually see myself learning all of that and and I have a book here from I've worked with Zair and I've worked with the game part of it and I can see like if I haven't finished I could actually understand the Qur'an like this is an amazing idea I started I started to talk back I'm like if I do this I can actually understand the Qur'an which makes I feel like learning Arabic make me able to to do this and understand the Qur'an which is a major plus and to be honest I wouldn't trade for anything it's like a big lesson no no no today but the last the last question what would be your advice for the person that knows and acknowledges the importance of learning Arabic however for whatever reason haven't or he didn't start yet you know I like this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this هل أنت ستتحدث عن أربي؟ هل أنت ستحدث عن أربي؟ هل أنت ستحدث عن أربي؟ نعم خلاص أبا إن شاء الله نكمل ونغلق هذه الدورة بالعربية فإن شاء الله لا أدري حتى ما سألك نقول طيب أنت أغلق هذه الدورة لأنني خلاص حسناً حسناً لأخوتي والأخوات المستمعين والمستمعات أرجو أن أستفتهم من هذه الحلقة إن شاء الله أرجو من الجميع لأن الذين لم يبدأوا بالتعلم العرضية أن يبدأوا اليوم لا أدري أقول لا أدري لا أدري أنت ستبدأ اليوم وإن شاء الله أبدأوا اليوم وتعلموا هذه اللغة وستكونوا إن شاء الله ستكونوا إنسان مختلفة إن شاء الله إن شاء الله بارك الله فيك لأخوتي الذين are interested in learning the Arabic language you guys can check out my personal case study down below how I did it and how you can do it from today إن شاء الله bless us all and give us tawfiq السلام عليكم ورحمة الله خنا فيصل السلام ورحمة الله بارك الله