Arabic on my whiteboard

Of the twelve languages that I have chosen to look at, the one with which I am the least familiar is Arabic. I'm virtually an absolute beginner. So I'll set my initial level at 1%. Not zero.

The reason for that is that I've worked with Arabic-speaking students. Occasionally, to help their spoken English, I've invited them to give me and the rest of the class an impromptu lesson about their language. Enough for me to know that the squiggles are confusing!

To me, that appears to be the greatest challenge: to interpret the written form of the language. I can't make out or remember its symbols. They don't lend themselves to being typed.

And so my first port of call is likely to be Google Translate. It has an Arabic interface. I'll use it to see how the letters connect and morph, depending on whether they come at the start, middle or end of the word.

And then there's something about leaving out vowels . . .