About me

Soo dhawow to my blog!

I’m a full time student who is passionate about learning new things (especially language learning!) and wants to reclaim her heritage one day at a time!

My story

I first started to learn Somali and Arabic during the first lockdown … when school first shut down. At first, I was really ambitious and thought that by the end of lockdown, I could have five hour long conversations in Somali and Arabic. Sadly, I was very wrong 😦

What went wrong…

Somali and Arabic are languages that are quite difficult to master, but clearly not impossible! The younger me was just very unrealistic in my ambitions with both languages. With Somali especially, the lack of resources to help beginners at the time definitely wore me down. I had no money for resouces so I relied on things I found online for free. Which for Somali, there was barely anything. And when the lockdowns ended, I no longer had endless amounts of time to devote to Arabic and Somali. Although I frequently returned to my studies, any progress I made felt really small and meaningless, probably because I wasn’t consistent enough!

So why now?

I’ve decided that now is my year to finally make significant progress on what I set out to do many years ago. But what’s different? I’m actually a lot more busier than I’ve ever been! However, I’m not going to let excuses bring me down. Inshallah, I will be a lot more consistent in my studies for both langauges. I’ve got a bit more experience on what has worked, plus there are so much more resources available than there was when I first started!

What can you expect?

I am not an expert on language learning. I’m someone who just really wants to learn Arabic and Somali and share my experience. I actually love language learning and also hope to brush up on my Spanish and a new languagebut that’s not the focus of this page. You can expect me to share resources that I’ve found really useful and updates on my progress. I hope that this blog inspires others to continue to try and meet their aspirations, Inshallah.

Soo dhawow, or مرحباً to my blog!

Love, Iftiin