At 24 years old, Virgil already speaks four languages—Romanian, English, French, and Italian—but his appetite for learning is bottomless. This summer, he decided to begin studying Fusha at WALI, beginning his long-time dream of delving into the complex and poetic Arabic language.
“It wasn’t just about studying the grammar and the vocabulary, but the cultural experience itself,” he says. “We can all study languages at home by ourselves, but actually being here and talking to people is a very big advantage.”
Indeed, Virgil had spent six months of the year studying Arabic independently. However, he eventually reached the limits of his self-guided learning and realized he would need structured classroom practice to truly progress.
Virgil had already visited Egypt and Morocco, and he was influenced by his favorite travel YouTubers to visit Tunisia. After reaching out to several institutes in Tunis, the warm response he received from Wissem solidified his decision to study at WALI.
“Wissem and I made a great connection over WhatsApp and email,” Virgil says. “She provided me with all of the details of the program, and the sign-up process was very easy.”
Even for a seasoned language learner, Virgil found Arabic demanding. Not only was the alphabet new to him, but with over 12 million words, the vocabulary is enormous. However, what Virgil found most difficult about Arabic—and what influenced him to pursue classroom study—was the lack of readily available study resources.
“If you want to learn Spanish or French, you have basically all of the resources you want—speaking tests, texts, applications,” he explains. “With Arabic, since it’s from a different culture and part of the world, it’s not as easy to find resources.”
For that reason, WALI’s extensive resources—especially the institute’s dialogue-based textbooks—have been crucial for Virgil’s learning. He also credits the ability of his teacher, Hassine, to strike a balance between technical instruction and cultural immersion. Classes were fully immersive in Fusha, and Hassine often compared words in Standard Arabic to their counterparts in various regional dialects.
“This experience wasn’t just about enhancing my Fusha skills, but preparing me for my next step forward,” he says. “I got the resources and guidance I need to continue my next goal of learning the Levantine dialect.”
Since Fusha is not a colloquial dialect, using it outside the classroom can feel unusual—similar, Virgil reckons, to speaking Latin in Western Europe. Still, he found it rewarding to speak the formal register, even using it to invite his Tunisian friends out for a drink.
Virgil readily admits that Arabic is hard—in his words, “maybe one of the hardest languages on the planet”—but he feels that its structure and depth make it greatly rewarding. In fact, the highly technical nature of Fusha that many learners fear also makes the language predictable, as it has very few irregularities.
“It’s a very structural language,” he explains. “But if you have a plan—get a tutor; find an institute—to help you learn and guide you through the grammar, you can get a long way.”
For Virgil, learning the grammar and structure of Arabic is ultimately about opening doors to new cultures and worldviews.
“I’m ten times happier regarding my cultural immersion and my relationship with other cultures than before studying Arabic,” he says. “When you speak Arabic, you understand this region in a way that I think every European should—especially anyone who considers themselves a cosmopolitan or international person.”
As an experienced language learner, Virgil knows the limits of his Arabic progress; nevertheless, he insists that even attempting to learn Arabic is highly respected by native speakers. For Virgil, learning new languages isn’t about having perfect fluency—it’s about being a more compassionate and open-minded person.
“I will never be able to master the language, but the very act of learning is something people appreciate in the Arab world,” he says. “I recommend it to everybody who wants to be a more culturally understanding person, which is something that we desperately need today.”