So... Arabic is really hard. There are lots of weird letters, some of which I still struggle with pronouncing. There are two letters represented by the English "s", "d", "t" and (the one that I think is hardest to tell the difference between) "h," as well as three different "th"s. Modern Standard Arabic (fus'ha - formal Arabic used in newspapers, on TV, and in official contexts but not really spoken) also has ridiculous grammar rules and case endings. Even a lot of Jordanians don't really know how to speak fus'ha well.
A'amiyya, colloquial Arabic, is a lot easier. It has very few grammar rules, no case endings, and a lot of the words are much easier to say. In addition, because its almost exclusively a spoken language, there are no hard and fast rules for spelling, which makes it a lot easier for me since I don't have to remember which letter is being used. Plus most of the "th"s are actually pronounced "t" or "z".
What this means is that I am almost learning two separate languages, although there is some overlap between the vocabulary and very conjugations. As a result, I've gotten pretty good at speaking - my host mom and I communicate almost exclusively in Arabic now - but my spelling is not great. Reading can also be difficult, because I may know a word from hearing it but not necessarily recognize it written out.
Also, though I'm pretty good with the vocabulary from the first ten chapters of my Arabic book, it's much easier for me to speak in a'amiyya, but this limits the people I can talk to, because I struggle with accents that aren't what I'm used to. For instance, one of my office mates is Iraqi and I can only speak to him in fus'ha. And sometimes people will assume that because I'm foreign I'll only understand them if they speak fus'ha, when in fact this is pretty much the opposite of the truth.
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