My name is Suzanne, and I have spent the best part of my adult life teaching Arabic. I grew up in Lebanon, in a flat where three languages came and went across a single dinner table. My grandmother would speak to me in classical Arabic, my mother in Levantine, my father in French. I learnt early that a language is never just words. It is a way of sitting with people. This blog is where I want to share some of that, slowly, one post at a time.
Where I come from
Lebanon gave me everything that mattered, including the slight chaos I still carry around. I studied Arabic literature at the Lebanese University, then spent years at university level in Lebanon, shaping Arabic programmes for students from all over the world. We had Americans, French, Nigerians, Koreans, Brazilians. Some came with five words and left reading poetry. Some came fluent and left realising how much they did not know. I loved all of it.
Then life took a turn. Politics, opportunity, family. I moved to the UK to read for my PhD, thinking I would stay three years and then go home. That was nearly two decades ago. Home changes shape when you are not looking.
Why I started teaching privately
For a long time I taught in universities here, which I enjoyed, but something always felt slightly off. A lecture hall of thirty students means thirty different needs, and you do the best you can with the minutes you have. Private tuition is different. You sit with one person, you hear what they actually want, and you build a lesson around them. The result is faster, warmer, and honestly more fun for both of us.
I started taking private students on the side, then more, then enough that I made the jump. Arabic Your Way grew out of that. The name is deliberate. I do not believe in one right way to learn Arabic. I believe in your way, shaped to what you need it for, and met where you actually are.
"A language is never just words. It is a way of sitting with people."
Who I teach now
My students are a mixed group. GCSE teenagers, mostly from heritage families who want the grade without losing the language. Professionals heading to Dubai or Riyadh for work. Parents who grew up hearing Arabic but never learning to read it. A few curious linguists who simply wanted a new puzzle. One retired vicar who wanted to read Christian texts in their original tongue. A surgeon in Manchester who wanted to talk to his Lebanese in-laws properly.
Every one of them comes with a different reason. My job is to hold the goal steady while we work, and to make the process enjoyable along the way. Arabic rewards patience more than it rewards talent. That is one of the reasons I love it.
What this blog will cover
I want the blog to feel like coffee with a teacher, not a textbook. Some posts will be practical, the phrases you need for a trip, the greetings that open doors, the small courtesies that change a meeting. Some will be cultural, Ramadan and Eid, calligraphy, why a dialect choice is personal. Some will be about the language itself, the three-letter roots, the musical rhythm, the mistakes English speakers keep making and how to stop.
I will try to keep each post short enough to read with a cup of tea, and honest enough that you finish it knowing a little more than you did. If you have a question you would like me to answer, send it over and I will work it into a post.
A welcome in my own tongue
If you take nothing else from this first post, take this. The Arabic word for welcome is أهلاً (ahlan), and when someone says it to you properly, they mean it. It carries the idea of family, of kin, of you being made at home. Saying it back costs nothing and changes everything. Arabic is full of these little gifts.
So, welcome to Arabic Your Way. I am glad you are here. Whether you stay for one post or for a block of ten lessons, I hope what you find here is warm, honest, and genuinely useful. If you would like a taste of what a lesson with me feels like, I offer a free thirty minutes to anyone curious. No pressure, just a conversation.
Ahlan wa sahlan. أهلاً وسهلاً. Make yourself at home.
If you would like to try a lesson before committing, I offer a free thirty-minute taster. Book a taster and we will take it from there.