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Has anyone taught themselves Arabic?!? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6230 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 9 of 70 27 December 2010 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hah! That is good to hear. I really like the Assimil method - I couldn't imagine that the Arabic version could be THAT bad compared to the others. Apparently Prof. Arguelles speaks highly of the Old Linguaphone Arabic course...I may try to track this one down as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| pfn123 Senior Member Australia Joined 5084 days ago 171 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English* | Message 10 of 70 27 December 2010 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I haven't started learning Arabic yet, but it's on my list, and someday...
So, I collect learning materials as I come across them. The two best beginning courses I have were not on your list. You may want to check them out. They are both Living Language courses. The first is Living Language's 'Arabic: The Basics'. It has fifteen lessons. Each lesson has a dialogue, grammar notes, cultural notes, and vocabulary. Living Language don't skimp on grammar as much as other publishers, I think. However, although this book introduces script gradually in each lessons, the dialogues are given in transcription and with English translations. But if you get the book in the pack, it also comes with a second book, which focuses on written Arabic. It starts by teaching reading, letter by letter till you can read full sentences. Then it teaches handwriting. Finally, it uses the dialogues from the coursebook as reading material, giving both the pointed and un-pointed texts. What's more, there are CDs, which give the dialogues, notes, and vocabularies, and have very little English. http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Arabic-Basics-Coursebook-Cour ses/dp/1400024080/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293450085& sr=8-1 The second is Living Language's Ultimate Arabic: Beginner-Intermediate. This is a bigger course. It teaches the basics of MSA in fifteen lessons, in a similar format to the course above, but it uses Arabic script throughout. But then, having given the student a foundation in MSA, the course then teaches the major dialects of Arabic. It devotes five lessons to each dialect. And for an appendix, there is a short phrasebook (in the form of a comparative table) of the different dialects. Oh, and the lessons all have recordings -- MSA and dialect. http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Arabic-Beginner-Intermediate- Book-Basic-Intermed/dp/1400020816/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books &qid=1293450085&sr=8-2 I think these courses are worth looking at. If used in the order I've given them, you can I think (with a phrasebook and some other resources) learn to converse and read MSA and dialects. Good hunting. Edited by pfn123 on 27 December 2010 at 12:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| pfn123 Senior Member Australia Joined 5084 days ago 171 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English* | Message 11 of 70 27 December 2010 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Whoops. Just saw this. Well, I stand by my post though. But ones man's meat... lol. Well, I think they're worth looking into. Hope you can find the resources that suit you. Good luck with this beautiful language :D Edited by pfn123 on 27 December 2010 at 12:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Mikael84 Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Peru Joined 5301 days ago 76 posts - 116 votes Speaks: French*, Finnish*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Russian | Message 12 of 70 28 December 2010 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have been teaching myself Arabic for almost 2 years without ever setting foot in an Arab country, so I guess I fit your target audience pretty well...
I have used a variety of methods and books during this time, but from your list I can only comment on one: Assimil. I used it in French, not sure which version but quite recent I think. It's the very first Arabic method I used. It has its flaws but I thought it was pretty good overall, mostly because the Assimil method is IMO the best for starting out in a new language. If you decide to use it, I have a few words of warning: - complexity and pace pick up considerably around lesson 30. Actually as a whole I think they should have devoted a lot more than 77 lessons to Arabic, the consequence of having fewer lessons for such a complex language is that the "jump" from one lesson to the next can be bigger than in other Assimil books. For this reason you shouldn't be ashamed of spending a lot more than just one day on each lesson. - one thing I don't like about this method is how often they use Arabic with Latin script, and when they use the Arabic script they almost always vocalize it. That's good for a beginner, but after a while you should force yourself to read non vocalized script all the time. The vocalization and Latin transcript served as crutches for too long and it was pretty hard for me to get rid of them afterwards. Other than that I highly recommend it as an introduction to Arabic. Even after you finish it you will need more material to push deeper in terms of grammar and vocabulary (and dialect should you decide to go that way), but you will have a very solid base. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 13 of 70 28 December 2010 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Isn't the English version of the Assimil course simply the first half or so of the French version? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| cmj Octoglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5339 days ago 58 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Arabic (classical), Latin, Italian | Message 14 of 70 29 December 2010 at 1:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, but it's the first half of the old French version. In 2005 or so they released a new Arabic course in their French line, which is the one I and the other recent poster have used and which is a huge improvement over the old course. You can tell right away which is which because in the old one the Arabic is handwritten, which isn't the case in the new version. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 15 of 70 29 December 2010 at 1:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Both are listed as having been written by Jean-Jacques Schmidt though, so are you certain they're in fact different courses? Have you compared the two side by side? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5698 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 16 of 70 29 December 2010 at 10:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have the two courses side by side, they are different, really.
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