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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3914 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 17 of 196 14 March 2014 at 8:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, thank you , Napoleon! I had my reply window open too long and didn't see that you'd already posted the answer to Crush's question! Thanks for the recommendation on the one for the writing system, though! That looks really useful! Regarding the microscopic Arabic script, since trying to start learning Arabic, I have wondered why the script is always so small. When anyone writes in it on the internet, it is so tiny, I have to magnify the pages! I wish their default Arabic font was a little bigger! Or is that my eyes? :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3914 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 18 of 196 14 March 2014 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, it does help... I can hear it when they say the letters singly, but I have a hard time figuring it out in a word... however, I am going to listen to that exercise a few more times and see if it becomes clear. I know in principal how it should sound, just distinguishing the two might take me some practice! :-) Thanks for your help! It is all very much appreciated! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 5008 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 19 of 196 14 March 2014 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
My thoughts exactly. :-) Have fun studying! Edited by napoleon on 14 March 2014 at 9:04pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7136 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 20 of 196 15 March 2014 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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For getting accustomed to the sounds of Arabic, the FSI Levantine Arabic course is a fantastic free resource. It really doesn't teach Levantine dialect, but is simply an introduction to the sounds of the language, all in transliteration, and has lots of practice exercises and self-tests to see whether or not you're perceiving/distinguishing the sounds correctly.
I think that the sounds it teaches are all the same as in standard Arabic, with but one exception: the Arabic letter "jim" in the course is a pronounced like a "zh" (or French "j") rather than like the English "j". (Per my understanding, many Arabs pronounce this letter in this way even when speaking standard Arabic.) But apart from this, I think all the other material in the course is the same as in MSA. You can find the coursebook and audio tapes to download here: http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Arabic%20Le vantine Working through the entire course is a good way to get used to the sounds of Arabic, but it can be boring to do all at once. If you don't want to devote overmuch time to it, you can focus on the problematic sounds (for me, as for most people, the difference between h and H, the emphatic consonants, and the 'ayn') and just do the drills on those a few times. (Producing them is harder than hearing them, but hearing them clearly is the first step toward being able, over time, to produce them correctly. This course doesn't teach the alphabet, which is the next step, but focuses strictly on the sounds. Once you've got the sounds down, using the alphabet becomes a whole lot easier.) Edited by daristani on 15 March 2014 at 4:03pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3914 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 21 of 196 15 March 2014 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks, Napoleon! I just reread the Arabic study group thread and realized that you are also going through FSI MWA... somehow I forgot that and thought you were just doing the other program. So I think I will have some questions for you! I'll post them on that thread later. Have fun to you, too! :-) Edited by nancydowns on 15 March 2014 at 4:51pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3914 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 22 of 196 15 March 2014 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank so much, Daristani. I have been working with the FSI MWA program, but I haven't done a lot on it yet. Eastern Arabic is the colloquial that I am most interested in, so I think I probably will do the Levantine one eventually. The exercise I was working on with the H's is in "Mastering Arabic." They said words, and you had to choose which letter it started with, and I couldn't tell apart the H's. I have done that exercise again several times, and I think I am starting to get more familiar with the distinction of those sounds. But there is a lot of work to do in getting the sounds down! Have you studied Arabic? Thanks for your help! :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7136 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 23 of 196 15 March 2014 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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One useful aspect of the FSI Levantine "course" is that it has lots of exercises to compare and contrast similar sounds that might be confused. Really, I can't praise it enough. It doesn't teach anything but the sounds, but does a very good job at that.
The FSI Levantine course is really intended, I think, to be done BEFORE studying anything else; as noted, it doesn't teach the dialect per se (but may have been intended as the first step in a course for Levantine.) As for myself, I've studied Arabic off and on, but mostly "off", for some time, including a semester in a university class (in which we used the "Al-Kitaab" book, which I absolutely hated). I can't claim to have gotten very far in the language, but blame that on my lack of constancy in my studies, since there are some good materials out there. In any event, good luck! Edited by daristani on 15 March 2014 at 5:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3914 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 24 of 196 15 March 2014 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, OK! Thanks!!! I just assumed that it was for that dialect. I'll check it out! I am putting a little more time to my Spanish right not than to my Arabic. I am working on both every day, but trying to push my Spanish level up a bit while keeping my Arabic going along, too! So I haven't gotten very far on my resources yet, but I do want to check out that Levantine FSI, and I really appreciate your help! Thanks for explaining it to me! :-) Edited by nancydowns on 15 March 2014 at 5:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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