Arab Reading Challenge inspires students from foreign countries to preserve Arabic language

Gulf News

Despite being away from their motherland, these Arab students from foreign countries stress the importance of knowing and preserving the language.  Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/36RjO06  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos  Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  #Dubai #Arab #ArabReadingChallenge

Transcript

00:00Am I going to lose my mother tongue language, which is the Arabic language that my holy book is written with it? I will not.

00:07I feel like language is one of the only things we have left and that we need to protect it at all costs.

00:12I see it as a part of my identity to know Arabic.

00:19My parents tried their best to start me with Arabic so I would be used to it.

00:23You know it's harder to learn a language if you're older.

00:26That's why they were trying to get me to know Arabic more.

00:29So at home it would all be Arabic and at school it would be English.

00:32That way I was getting both of each world.

00:35My father and mother, they told me to start it and it was actually an opportunity to read in Arabic

00:45because I don't usually read in Arabic. I read in Norwegian or English.

00:48I came to Australia in 2003. It was a bit difficult for me to learn the English language

00:54and a few years I started learning that language.

00:57After learning it I started thinking, am I going to lose my mother tongue language, which is the Arabic language

01:04that my holy book is written with it? I will not. I will not allow for this to happen.

01:09And so I started learning the Arabic language.

01:12My sister participated in this challenge last year.

01:15She actually told me, what about we participate together?

01:18But I said I didn't want to because I didn't believe in my abilities

01:22and I thought that I was not ready for it.

01:24But then after she won, she got first place in Australia

01:27and she also got third place around the other countries.

01:31She gave me, I really wanted to do it. She inspired me.

01:35I'm kind of a shy person but then I felt a little more confident

01:39and I felt very happy to meet people like me from foreign countries

01:43that really can't speak Arabic with any other person.

01:47I see it as a part of my identity to know Arabic and know my origins

01:52and I see a lot of people, Arabic people who don't actually know the language

01:58and I don't want to be like that.

02:01I feel like language is one of the only things you have left

02:04and that we need to protect it at all costs because it could disappear

02:08because people could forget about it.

02:11The initiative is absolutely amazing and I can tell you from my current judgment

02:18it's like a motivation for these students who don't often talk in Arabic

02:24in their countries like say in Sweden, Germany, United States, Holland.

02:28It motivated them to start reading and doing the summaries

02:33and discuss the books with their parents and then get ready for this.

02:36It's a very important initiative for these kids to practice their reading.

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