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I'm going to be taking Arabic 101 (modern standard arabic, that is) in the fall and am super excited. I'm really interested in different languages so I'm not worried about passing the class it's just that I want to be able to master (or at least semi-master) the pronunciations, grammar, and alphabet (pretty much arabic as whole! lol). The languages that I do know are not in the same language family as arabic (the ones I know are Indo-European, in the Slavic, Germanic, & Romance lang. area) so I do realize it's going to be a tough thing.
Does anyone have any tips on how I can better prepare myself to learn Arabic besides the few words I know from the songs (ya habibi, ya rohi, etc. lol)? Any helpful study guides or things that some of you guys did to improve your arabic? I know the best way to master a language, or at least make the best use of it, is to go to a country that speaks arabic but since (sadly) that is not an option at this moment, any other suggestions? And also, since I'm going to be learning MSA, as far as dialects what kind should I lean towards and is it going to be difficult to go from MSA to a dialect?
Thanks!!
Does anyone have any tips on how I can better prepare myself to learn Arabic besides the few words I know from the songs (ya habibi, ya rohi, etc. lol)? Any helpful study guides or things that some of you guys did to improve your arabic? I know the best way to master a language, or at least make the best use of it, is to go to a country that speaks arabic but since (sadly) that is not an option at this moment, any other suggestions? And also, since I'm going to be learning MSA, as far as dialects what kind should I lean towards and is it going to be difficult to go from MSA to a dialect?
Thanks!!
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Re: new arabic lang. student
Thu, May 29, 2008 - 9:05 AMIf you haven't learned the alphabet yet, try practicing it. Before I took my first class in college I already knew how to write because I tried to learn Arabic on my own (we all know that is very unlikely to succeed). But by the time I got to school I knew and was comfortable writing any of the symbols - these can be overwhelming, because each letter has a somewhat different shape depending on if it's in front, middle, back or stands alone. This helped me a lot, while everyone else was struggling with it.
However I always had - and still have - a problem with the ص- س ,ق- ك ,ط- ت ,ظ- ض, د- ذ distinction. To us these are allophones ( similar in sound to our ears and not make a big difference) so we may not differentiate between them properly. My spelling is normally very good in any languages I learn and in Arabic... well , it sucks. -
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Re: new arabic lang. student
Thu, May 29, 2008 - 9:54 AMyah I tried looking over the alphabet once, just like you I tried teaching myself...hence the reason I'm taking a class in the Fall lol but I was just so overwhelmed at how each letter has like three different ways of writing it depending on where in the word it is! you have any good tips that helped you memorize the alphabet & the letters in some way? -
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Re: new arabic lang. student
Thu, May 29, 2008 - 3:28 PMI kept writing words over and over again. I was trying to learn the language at the same time, so I wrote Assalamu alaykum like 25 times, then walaykum salam another 25 times, etc. Every word / phrase I was learning, I kept writing them out.
It really wasn't that hard, after a while your brain remembers it all.
but don't use keyboard, and don't only rely on reading and finding letters - there's really something about handwriting it. It's not only about this alphabet, but anything you try to learn - the good old fashioned handwritten note-system really does work!
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