AMMAN - “Without Arabic you can get by [in Amman], but it’s so much more interesting if you communicate with people,” said Nathan Shepherd, an American who is working in Amman this year as an emerging markets development adviser.

Shepherd, one of hundreds of foreigners studying Arabic in Jordan, has been taking lessons from a private tutor with several of his American colleagues. He didn’t know any Arabic before he came to Jordan, and he said getting around Amman with just English wasn’t that difficult, but he wanted to pick up at least some of the local language.

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