Categories: linguistics, study, music
Date: 25 October 2006 12:41:24
Arabic class continues well: I managed 9/10 for my homework and was also complimented on my pronunciation. I felt rather chuffed. I still need a lot of practice though: my vocabulary remains quite limited. We are learning to form fuller sentences, and learning a bit about the grammar of the language in the process: I can introduce myself and describe where I come from and where I live -- and that's pretty useful. Like French, German, and other languages, Arabic has genders for its nouns, so I'm trying to learn those: and hopefully not get too confused when they vary from German, which I know a bit of.
Being Eid ul-Fitr, the feast that ends Ramadan, our teacher had brought in Arabic sweets so we could celebrate with her: a lovely gesture, and they were delicious.
Music class is great also: though only two classes remain which is a bit unfortunate as it is such great fun. Each week I get a deeper and deeper understanding of how much work musicians must do, and hence my admiration for them increases weekly also. It's also interesting to see the many different layers of music, and how they all come together. Last night we looked at changing keys and then had an overview of performing music: what musicians need to do to prepare to play and how they play during a performance. Our teacher has also conducted, and she gave us an overview of what a conductor needs to do: she mentioned holding on to the baton firmly as a key part: it having flown out of her hands twice when she was conducting. I will miss these classes: they are a great deal of fun, as well as being informative. The same teacher also takes introductory classes on opera and classical music -- I may very well take one of those next year.