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The French and Arabic Study Group

  Tags: Study Group | Arabic | French
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78 messages over 10 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 1 ... 9 10 Next >>
kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4892 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 78
24 September 2011 at 9:55pm | IP Logged 
Bon matin mes copains!

!ومرحبا حبيبي


There's a small handful of us who are studying both Arabic and French, so we thought
we'd try a joint log / study group to help each other out, and to post our progress. I
think this is something new in the forums, so we don't have any guidelines yet.

Feel free to introduce yourself and join in! Experts and native speakers are welcome
too; I'm sure we'll have plenty of questions for you as we go along. Tell us who you
are, what your goals are, and what materials you'll be using.

That should be a good start, eh?
2 persons have voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4892 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 2 of 78
24 September 2011 at 10:13pm | IP Logged 
I do have two suggestions that will make the group run smoothly, though!

1.
Let's use "Arab Chat Alphabet," a.k.a.
Arabish, when we want to use Roman
letters. It's not the prettiest system, but it's what the kids all use on-line, so
it's well established, and we can all do it on our normal keyboards.

2.
Download Microsoft
Maren
to type in proper Arabic script. When you turn it on, you type in Arabish
and it translates it into proper Arabic. The link has a video that explains it better.
It makes typing Arabic so much easier. Like this:

I type:

mar7aba   (welcome)
ma3a alsalaam (good bye)
shukran (thanks)
3afwan (you're welcome)
5amsah (five)

and when I click on the Arabic language bar I get:

مرحبا
مع السلام
شكرا
عفوا
خمسة

It's so easy. I love this program.

Edited by kanewai on 24 September 2011 at 10:13pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Emiliana
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
Joined 5117 days ago

81 posts - 98 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Arabic (classical)

 
 Message 3 of 78
24 September 2011 at 10:28pm | IP Logged 
مرحبا

J'apprends le francais et l'arabe!

In school I had French classes for 3 years and I am struggling now to bring me on B1/B2 level within the next few months. I use Assimil (lesson 44 right now) and some reading material and stuff that is available online (e.g. BBC French). I also listen to francais facile from RFI for listening comprehension which is my major problem right now. Until now I can only grasp the basic information from it. My reading comprehension is much better...

I had an on-off relationship with Arabic in the past ~2 years. Some time ago I had a good A1 or bad A2 level but due to laziness this is lost :(. I will continue studying Arabic next week and I will use FSI written Arabic, my German text books that I have at home and maybe this Arabic textbook from 1921 that has been introduced in the other thread which I downloaded and which seems to be quite interesting. I don't have a concrete goal for Arabic yet as I have a complicated but passionate relationship with it ;). I really love the script and it gives me joy when I use it.

I am curious to here from you guys!
1 person has voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4892 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 4 of 78
24 September 2011 at 10:33pm | IP Logged 
Alors, commençons!

I'm Michael, from Honolulu, and my overall goal is to be competent in seven languages
by the time I'm 50. And time is a-ticking away. I have three down (English, Bahasa
Indonesia, and an obscure Micronesian language called Chuukese).

French is an easy choice. I took two years in college, and haven't used it
since. I've been studying hard for the past four months. I went through Pimsleur I and
II, and am currently working my way through Assimil and the Foreign Service
Institute
courses. It is a great combination!

Arabic has always intrigued me, but I start, get frustrated, stop, and then
repeat. I took one semester of MSA in college (1984), so got the basic sounds and
concepts down. Later I did 3 chapters of Syrian Colloquial on my own, went to Jordan
(2007), and did pretty well in the souks and restaurants and hamam! I loved Arabic. I
studied some more, did seven chapters of a Teach Yourself book, and went to Egypt a
year later. And did not understand a word. I quit Arabic. What was the point if every
country had their own friggin' dialect?

But now I'm back, with a new approach: I'll work my way slowly through FSI Modern
Written Arabic
, and get the writing and reading down. I won't worry about listening
and speaking.   When it's time, I'll try a dialect.

And the reason I'm doing these now? This Spring I intend to spend two weeks in
Tunisia and one week in Paris. It'll be a test of how well I've done, and my motivation
to study hard for six more months.


2 persons have voted this message useful



Doitsujin
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5323 days ago

1256 posts - 2363 votes 
Speaks: German*, English

 
 Message 5 of 78
25 September 2011 at 1:38am | IP Logged 
kanewai wrote:
Download Microsoft Maren to type in proper Arabic script

There's no need to download anything. Just use the Yamli web interface.

BTW, "goodbye" is usually translated as مع السلامة or إلى اللقاء

3 persons have voted this message useful



liddytime
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
mainlymagyar.wordpre
Joined 6232 days ago

693 posts - 1328 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician
Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 6 of 78
25 September 2011 at 1:55am | IP Logged 
Marhaba! / Salut!

Brian here, aka liddytime, from Oregon. As you can see from my profile I am a bit of a language geek. I began learning
languages for work and travel requirements but the more I started learning them, the more fascinated I became with them. I
really hate traveling to a foreign country and speaking English the whole time so even if I am going somewhere like the
Netherlands for a week, I will try to pick up as much Dutch as possible before I go and try to learn as much as I can while I am
there.

My main goal right now is Arabic. I, like kanewai, took a semester in college (1992) , but didn't really learn very much. I
have dabbled in it off and on since then with no real goal in mind, thus no real progress. Since college, I haven't lived anywhere
with access to Arabic speakers so my motivation hasn't pushed my much past my general curiosity in the language.   

This fall, U of O is offering a self-study Arabic class that is open to the general public. Twice a week I will meet with the tutor, an
Omani so I'm told, and speak, speak, speak. I will also be able to meet other Arabic learners/speakers to actually speak the
language, which has been my main hindrance in the past.   

My goal is to get through the entire FSI Arabic Basic Course ( Saudi / Hijazi dialect) by next spring. I have also re-visited the FSI
Modern Written Arabic course and will try to go through 1 or 2 lessons a week to improve my comprehension of Arabic Media.

I am also interested in French because I have never seriously studied it and it seems possible with my knowledge of several other
Romance languages. Plus, it would be nice to be able to access the scores of Assimil courses that are offered exclusively in
French. I don't have a specific plan aside from reading through the group postings here for starters.

I'll have to check out Arabish! I'm not familiar with it yet, but it sounds pretty easy!
edit: مع سلامة! I just discovered Yamli. Works better for me because I'm on a mac!

Edited by liddytime on 25 September 2011 at 4:15am

1 person has voted this message useful



napoleon
Tetraglot
Senior Member
India
Joined 5019 days ago

543 posts - 874 votes 
Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu
Studies: French, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 7 of 78
26 September 2011 at 10:17am | IP Logged 
@liddytime: As you have already mentioned that you are 're-visiting' the FSI MWA Course, you must have completed all three volumes n the past? How good was your passive comprehension of MSA when you had completed the course in the past? Could you read newspapers, understand TV news, read children's books, etc.?

Edited by napoleon on 26 September 2011 at 4:01pm

1 person has voted this message useful



liddytime
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
mainlymagyar.wordpre
Joined 6232 days ago

693 posts - 1328 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician
Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 8 of 78
26 September 2011 at 4:04pm | IP Logged 
napoleon wrote:
@liddytime: As you have already mentioned that you are 're-visiting' the FSI MWA
Course, did
you complete all three volumes?

How good was your passive comprehension of MSA when you had completed the course in the past?
Could you
read newspapers, understand TV news, read children's books, etc.?


Oh noooo nooo noooo. I only got through Lesson 5 or so where I am now!

! 5 لا لا لا . باس انتهيت من الدرس
أين أنا الآن!

So no I didn't complete it, although , with the 2500 or so vocabulary items in the course, it appears that
one would have a pretty good comprehension of Arabic media topics. I made it though lesson 25 of the DLI
Arabic course last spring. Just from this alone I could somewhat get the main points of news stories. I will
say that the Saudi course is much more user friendly the the DLI one and it does seem that the Saudi
dialect is fairly close to MSA in terms of vocabulary.


Edited by liddytime on 26 September 2011 at 7:24pm



1 person has voted this message useful



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