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What is the Best Arabic Method?

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
Poll Question: Which in your opinion is the Best Arabic Self-Instruction Method?
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
10 [34.48%]
9 [31.03%]
2 [6.90%]
6 [20.69%]
2 [6.90%]
You can not vote in this poll

27 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4  Next >>
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 1 of 27
30 December 2010 at 4:30am | IP Logged 

If you could choose just ONE method to teach yourself Arabic ( for self-study not to be used in a classroom),
which one would you choose.



I am excited about the multitude of responses I have received in response to : Has anyone out there actually
taught themselves Arabic?!?!

Has anyone out there
actually taught themselves Arabic?!?!


I'd be curious to see what people think.



Please only vote if you have successfully used the course. Don't vote if you intend to use the course someday
because it looks good, but is currently gathering dust on your bookshelf.

The above seem to be the most popular choices from the other posts.   By all means, if you have a different
suggestion share it below!

Thanks! /   شكرا جزيلا لك!
2 persons have voted this message useful



Préposition
Diglot
Senior Member
France
aspectualpairs.wordp
Joined 5115 days ago

186 posts - 283 votes 
Speaks: French*, EnglishC1
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine)

 
 Message 2 of 27
30 December 2010 at 10:16am | IP Logged 
I cannot vote (Newbie status, probably?), and I cannot unfortunately comment on the others, but Al-Kitaab with a
good grammar book on the side could work. For the "good grammar book", Abu Chacra's "Arabic: An Essential
Grammar" should be enough, unless you too are a massive fan of grammar, in which case Karin C. Ryding's "A
Reference Grammar of MSA" should do it for a start.

After years of students complaining about Al-Kitaab, my university decided to change the textbook and went for
Yale's "Ahlan Wa Sahlan", and I must admit I found it far less depressing than Al-Kitaab (I haven't studied with it
properly, though). It should cover as much material, however, one of the comments from my lecturer was that it's
good if you're not a complete beginner, as in completing "Alif Baa" would put you at the right level to start AWS.

Edited by Préposition on 30 December 2010 at 10:16am

2 persons have voted this message useful



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 3 of 27
30 December 2010 at 6:35pm | IP Logged 
Préposition wrote:

After years of students complaining about Al-Kitaab, my university decided to change the textbook and went for
Yale's "Ahlan Wa Sahlan", and I must admit I found it far less depressing than Al-Kitaab AWS.


I checked it out - It does look better for self-study than Al Kitaab!
1 person has voted this message useful



Andrew C
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
naturalarabic.com
Joined 5191 days ago

205 posts - 350 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 4 of 27
30 December 2010 at 9:20pm | IP Logged 
Why not just read "Modern Literary Arabic" by David Cowan? - It's a concise introduction to Arabic, which I have found invaluable over the years.
1 person has voted this message useful



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 5 of 27
31 December 2010 at 3:50am | IP Logged 
Andrew C wrote:
Why not just read "Modern Literary Arabic" by David Cowan? - It's a concise introduction to Arabic, which I have found invaluable over the years.


I just now picked it up on Amazon for 7 bucks. It looks like an awesome (ageless) book!
2 persons have voted this message useful



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 6 of 27
31 December 2010 at 3:54am | IP Logged 
Préposition wrote:
I cannot vote (Newbie status, probably?), a.....


Hmmm, I'm not sure. I looked on the forum "rules" and they didn't say anything prohibitive regarding newbies and polls...
1 person has voted this message useful



LatinoBoy84
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5576 days ago

443 posts - 603 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French
Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian

 
 Message 7 of 27
31 December 2010 at 4:09am | IP Logged 
"Living Arabic: A Comprehensive Introductory Course" [With CD (Audio) and DVD]
BY Munther Younes & Micah Garen.


For what it's worth I've seen the NEW Assimil book, looks quite good actually.

Edited by LatinoBoy84 on 31 December 2010 at 4:09am

1 person has voted this message useful



DavidW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6527 days ago

318 posts - 458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu

 
 Message 8 of 27
01 January 2011 at 4:25pm | IP Logged 
I'm familiar with all these books, although I haven't really worked much with Al-
kitaab. The way I'd approach learning Arabic, if starting from scratch, is first by
working with the linguaphone and assimil courses, to get a feel for the structure of
the language and a basic vocabulary.

Then, I'd work at the Audiolingual courses, maybe the Orange book first, then the DLI
course. I haven't seen it in a while, but I think the Orange book doesn't provide
enough drills to really master the basic structures of Arabic. In conjunction with
this, I'd start working with bilingual texts with recordings to see these structures in
use and expand my vocabulary (although I hear they are a little hard to find in
Arabic). I'd probably spend about half my time on each activity, changing activity
every 45 minutes or so, and doing two 1.5 hour sessions a day. Then I think you would
make good progress. If you had an opportunity to speak it with someone also, that
would certainly help.

This is probably how I would approach any language now. The methods came from
different posters in this forum and I've arranged them to suit myself.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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