Sam
the English learner and viewer stand-in
“فِي قَلْبِي (fī qalbī) — "in my heart" (not fī kalbī, "in my dog"!)”
Says hello مَرْحَبًا أَنَا سام وَأُحِبُّ اللُّغَةَ العَرَبِيَّةَ فِي قَلْبِي كَثِيرًا جِدًّا. Marḥaban anā Sām wa-uḥibbu l-lughata l-ʿarabiyyata fī qalbī kathīran jiddan. Hello I am Sam and I love the Arabic language in my heart very much.
Sam is the 29-year-old Englishman who steps into the medina with one suitcase, a phone-dictionary he can't put down, and not a single letter of the alphabet. He is you, the viewer's mirror, and he makes every lovable, mortifying mistake first so you get to skip them. Warm, eager, gloriously wrong, and learning to read right alongside you.
Appears in
-
Lesson 1
The Locked Door (intro) — learn to READ real Arabic -
Lesson 2
The tooth family — ب ت ث ن ي -
Lesson 3
The vowel-marks — a, i, u and the sukūn -
Lesson 4
The ḥ-family — ج ح خ -
Lesson 5
Murájaʿa — the first words -
Lesson 6
The one-way letters — ا د ذ ر ز و -
Lesson 7
The heavy letters — س ش · ص ض · ط ظ -
Lesson 8
The throat letters — ع غ · ف ق · ك (and the heart/dog) -
Lesson 9
The last letters — ل م ه (and "hello") -
Lesson 10
Murájaʿa — all 28 letters -
Lesson 11
Two jobs each — و and ي
