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The French and Arabic Study Group

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Emiliana
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
Joined 5117 days ago

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

 
 Message 25 of 78
03 October 2011 at 10:37pm | IP Logged 
hey napoleon!
don't worry, here i am with my update:
i am on lesson 53 of assimil (french) right now. i have to admit that i can't proceed as fast as i was used anymore. the lessons are getting too complicated. also when i started the second wave i found it a bit frustrating. i am not really bad in translating, but still i get so many small details wrong (e.g. i write e instead of é etc.). when i think of the lessons around 30 or 40 i really wonder what i will still remember... and i am not a complete beginner in french! i wonder how you guys who start from scratch get along with it. anyway, i am still making a big progress, but on the other hand it is difficult to force oneself EVERY DAY to study.
napoleon, what do you mean with "lu"-sounds?

ah and arabic: i am still stuck with unit 1 ;). i really need a lot of energy to work through this badly written texts... then scroll down for the vocab, scroll back. etc. pp. it is a free course so i should not bother but it is not very easy to work with it, though.
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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 26 of 78
03 October 2011 at 11:02pm | IP Logged 
I struggled through Chapter 6 of Written Arabic. And I do mean struggled! The
sentences are still basic, but there are no translations given and the grammar notes
are minimal.

Once I finally figured out the patterns it was a pretty easy chapter. Now I'm part way
through Chapter Seven, which has the 2idafa / possessive construction. It's easy, but
so dated, and so boring.   

Idris is the King of Libya.
The king of Libya, he is Idris
The Sudan is a successful republic.

and then zonk, I fall asleep.

Only to wake up to ...

جمال عبد الناصر رئيس الجومهيريياتة العربية المتحدة
Jamal 3abdu al-na9r 7ussein ra2isu al-jumuhiruyatu al-3arabiti al-mutta7ida
Jamal Abdu Nasr Hussein is the president of the United Arab Republic.

Which is quite a mouthful for a beginner student. I'm very glad they changed the name
to "ma9r." It's so much easier to say.


I should finish Chapter 7 tonight, and then tackle Chapter 8 this week. They introduce
verbs, and the recordings for Chapter 8 are missing. Should be a challenge!
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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 27 of 78
03 October 2011 at 11:07pm | IP Logged 
Emiliana - the Active wave of Assimil does get easier once you get the hang of it! My
first couple translations were full of errors. Now (I'm around Chapter 34 active) I
still make lots of errors with prepositions (de and a), and accents, but usually only
miss one or two words. It definitely forced me to pay attention to the smaller detains,
the ones you miss when you're just repeating the dialogues.
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Emiliana
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
Joined 5117 days ago

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

 
 Message 28 of 78
03 October 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged 
aaaaaaah good to know that "the united arabic republic" is actually egypt!!! i was already wondering... btw i am at lesson two on mwa now. nice two see that i am not the only one who is struggling sometimes. this is a real advantage of this group, i always get motivated when i read about the progress of you guys!
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napoleon
Tetraglot
Senior Member
India
Joined 5019 days ago

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

 
 Message 29 of 78
04 October 2011 at 6:11am | IP Logged 
Lu vs le, vu vs ve, nu vs ne, su vs se, du vs de, etc. I am having trouble differentiating between such pairs of syllables in French.
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 30 of 78
04 October 2011 at 8:42am | IP Logged 
Napoleon - You're doing Assimil, right? I don't think getting all the sounds right is
super important in the beginning for that system. Unlike FSI, which considers poor
pronunciation and a bad accent "grievous errors that must be corrected at once." (I
read that in the Spanish Basic - it's such a different mind set than today, yeah?)

Emiliana - I don't have the perfect system for the Arabic, but what kind of works for
me is:
day 1 I listen to the tape and repeat, even if I don't understand it.
day 2 + I transcribe what I can, and translate what I can. Sometimes this takes
a couple days - I might only get through five or ten sentences! Sometimes I use the
tape, sometimes I just read.
day 3ish: I read the supplemental sentences. This is pretty easy after the above
steps!

Just stick at it, and plod on through!!! I'm not worried about understanding much at
this point. I figure, Arabic is a language for the long haul, and rushing it, or
stressing about it, will lead to giving up. Just, we'll do our little bit each day,
one day at a time, and we'll see where we get!!!
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 31 of 78
04 October 2011 at 11:31am | IP Logged 
@kanewai:I'm also doing FSI French Phonology along with Assimil.
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Emiliana
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
Joined 5117 days ago

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

 
 Message 32 of 78
04 October 2011 at 12:39pm | IP Logged 
"e" in french (like in le, ve etc.) is usually pronounced like "i" in the English word "bird" or the "u" in "murder" (when it comes to spelling englsh is reeeeally a weird language btw.)... in German the sound is represented by the letter "ö".
regarding the french "u" sound i can't figure out any matching English word that contains this sound (maybe kanewai can help out here), in German it is the same like the letter "ü".




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