Quote:
Originally Posted by Majorix
Tell us about what your native language is, about what helped you in learning English, the reason(s) why you prefer to read in a foreign language, what kind of books you read
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My mother tongue is Arabic. I attended private schools my whole life and it's only when I graduated from high school did I go to a public university. Some of you may wonder what this has to do with anything. Here in the UAE, they rarely teach English at public schools and if it's taught, it's taught very poorly. Public schools focus on the Arabic language solely; all of the subjects are taught in Arabic. Private schools on the other hand don't focus only on our native language, English similarly is regarded as a vital language that we have to learn, in order to graduate it was (still is) compulsory for us to speak/write fluently in both Arabic as well as English.
When I was young, my mother used to get me English and Arabic novels. I used to read both but I preferred the English novels a bit more for some reason. The Arabic novels were classics translated in Arabic and it could be that a few were translated poorly. I enjoy fantasy and science fiction and you very rarely see Arabic books in these genres.