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Jack TS #11


Today, Somaia and I met to talk a little about grammar, but we also just talked. Somaia’s fluency is really good, even if her grammar from a prescriptive perspective is not the best. Sometimes she would use the simple present tense while talking about the past, and I try to correct her a little to nudge her in the right direction while letting her practice her flow and just having some fun chatting. We talked about cultural and dialectal differences between Arabic speaking countries and even within Saudi Arabia. Somaia was from the West coast of the country whereas my conversation partner, Sulaiman, was from Riyadh, the capital. Riyadh is a very cool, modern city, but it is in the middle of the desert with absolutely no water around, and Somaia’s hometown is really close to the sea. We also talked about similarities and differences between Islam and Christianity, which was really interesting and a cool cultural opportunity for both of us.

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