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Speaking Classical Arabic- Fusha | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| osteoblast Newbie Canada Joined 5024 days ago 5 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English | Message 1 of 30 04 January 2011 at 4:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I have been studying Fusha (ancient Arabic) for the last 3 months, rougly 2-3 hours daily. Initially, I wanted to learn sentence construction (Nahw) and morphology (Sarf) to understand the Quran. I used the Madinah Books by Dr. V. Abdur Rahim (http://www.lqtoronto.com/videodl.html) along with the dvds. I have met this goal and would like to go onto speak the language.
I have also memorized the Quran and some sayings of the Prophet. Please provide suggestions for improvement vis-a-vis my plan of learning to speak: - I have one book from Dr. V left and hope to finish that. This will take me until mid Feb. I am more interested in understanding than speaking, since my primary goal is to be able to understand the Qur'an. - I have also found someone who knows Fusha very well and will start speaking to me for 1 hour starting tomorrow. I hope to continue this until the end of March. - I will be free from April - June. I plan to travel to Egypt to learn the language. I have not mapped out the details, but I am hoping to live with a family -- that can speak fusha, possibly university student, an Imam of a Masjid -- and also take one-on-one lessons. When I am in Egypt in intend on only talking in Arabic... thats my main strategy and I have some minor ones and still researching others. I hope by the end of June I will be able to speak the language. Thoughts??? Is it realistic, given my background and past studying to be able to speak Arabic in 3 months? Edited by osteoblast on 04 January 2011 at 5:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5768 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes  Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 2 of 30 04 January 2011 at 6:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 04 January 2011 at 6:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5768 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 3 of 30 04 January 2011 at 6:16am | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry for these 2 posts. Can't seem to post a new one and all of them got appended to this.
Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 04 January 2011 at 6:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Préposition Diglot Senior Member France aspectualpairs.wordp Joined 5064 days ago 186 posts - 283 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC1 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 4 of 30 04 January 2011 at 9:58am | IP Logged | ||
As far as I'm aware, fusHa refers to Modern Standard Arabic and not to classical qur'anic Arabic, so are you sure you're learning the right one? Of course they are rather close, but there are definitely difference, mostly in style, and of course in the grammar and the vocabulary. I'm not exactly sure how different they are, so all I can say is that learning MSA will obviously give you a very good basis if you need to learn classical Arabic after that, and in the meanwhile, this file, and that one, will, insh'allah, help you, at least with the vocabulary. I can't really tell how ambitious it is of you to think you will find a family that speaks MSA, as they generally speak colloquial Arabic, and Egyptian is quite different from MSA in terms of vocab, syntax and pronounciation, but if you do manage to find such a family, good luck! Finally, if you simply want to communicate with people in Egypt, then 3 months should be enough. If you want to communicate in MSA, I suggest you assess your level first, but you're likely to be able to speak it only will knowledgeable people. Any reason for picking Egypt? If you are flexible, I suggest you have a look at Damascus, life is really cheap, it's a lovely place (nicer than Cairo, according to my classmates), and there's the Abu Nour Institute, which is meant to give excellent tuition in both MSA and Qur'anic Arabic (for a stupidly small fee, may I add), and they also give tajweed classes and various things that you may find useful on your path to understanding the Qur'an. It's also very easy to find a private tutor, and the Ummayyad Mosque is gorgeous. Edited by Préposition on 04 January 2011 at 9:58am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5140 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 30 04 January 2011 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Well it depends what you mean by "speak Arabic". If you mean speak like a native - there is no chance anyone can do this in 3 months or even 3 years. However, it sounds like your method is good, so you should make good progress. PS When you say you have memorized the Qur'an - I take it you don't mean the whole book?? That would be incredible. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| osteoblast Newbie Canada Joined 5024 days ago 5 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English | Message 6 of 30 04 January 2011 at 1:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Andrew C:
I have memorized the entire Quran from memory and have been reciting it in Ramadan, for last 15 years; for Muslims this isn't a big thing -- there are people who have memorized thousands of lines of poetry, in addition to Quran, the six books of hadith... For the past two years, I led all the prayer from memory. When I read the Quran, even the natives think I am an Arab. I have learned the art of Tajweed so I am not worried about an accent. Sometimes when I quote Quran, hadith, or Arabic poety, the Arabs would come up to me and start speaking in Arabic and when I inform them I can't they would be shocked...I have also memorized half of Hisnul Muslim and the entire 40 Hadith of An-Nawawi. Memorizing the Quran does not help much with speaking, as I believe it is inimitable. So...ya... I consider it very fortunate to very memorized the Quran despite not knowing the language. However, I don't think I am special as I think anyone can memorize. Préposition: Thank uploading the Quranic vocab. I did the course a year ago and found it very helpful and with my additional studies, I can translate close to 80% of the Quran. Arabic (according to Nouman Ali Khan) can be divided as: Colloquial (Aamiya), Academic/formal(MSA), Ancient Arabic--Kalamu Al-Arab (Fusha), and the Quranic Arabic. I meant Fusha when I said it. But Fusha is very close to MSA. The grammar of all of these is the same. The vocabulary varies and the idioms... I think I can find a family, insh'Allah, as I know a lot of people who have good connections with religious individuals in Egypt. I also currently emailed 10 people who I thought know Fusha; 3 of them have replied and are willing to speak Fusha for an hour daily with me. As for the location, no particular reason. I heard a lot of good reviews. I am open to change. I was thinking of staying in Egypt for two months and then moving to Mauritania (nothing can be better than the desert for learning the ancient language). I like the idea of Damascus. If you can provide more details I woudl appreciate that. Also, I am hoping I might be able to get March off as well and have 4 months to spend over sees. I met an individual who could speak Fusha-- with no accent, though I don't know the extent of his vocabulary -- by spending a month and a half in Egypt. I am hoping with my background, spending 3 month should help me. Edited by osteoblast on 05 January 2011 at 6:20pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5140 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 7 of 30 04 January 2011 at 3:12pm | IP Logged | ||
Wow - I'm blown away that anyone can memorise the entire Qur'an without understanding it. I didn't realise that it is common for Muslims to do this. Anyway, it sounds to me as if you don't need language learning advice, but if you do, I'll tentatively mention the following points; - Just because someone speaks fuSHa doesn't mean they will be able to teach it well. It's more important to find a good teacher. - In Egypt you will have a constant battle to stop people using English with you, once they find out you're not an Arab. I think I heard Syria was better in this regard. - Understanding 80% of the Qur'an is a good start - but it might be that the remaining 20% will take a very long time to understand. - There are other things you can do before you set off - like listen to DLI lessons or al-jazeera with transcripts. It depends how much your focus is on fuSHa rather than MSA. But do as much listening as you can before you go. I'm sure you've seen "Quran Explorer" - a really wonderful online program. - 3 months is still in my opinion an impossibly short time to be able to speak fluently, but knowing your language learning history, perhaps you'll be able to do it! Edited by Andrew C on 04 January 2011 at 3:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| osteoblast Newbie Canada Joined 5024 days ago 5 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English | Message 8 of 30 05 January 2011 at 4:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Those are great tips, Andrew. I greatly appreciate it.
I spoke for the first time with a friend over the phone for an hour. There was a lot of um....however my friend was very patient so he listened and corrected me... as of right now it does seem quite impossible to learn in 3 months. However, I am optimistic. One thing which I learnt is that I need to get a phrase book. Does anyone know any such book in English? A lot of the times I was asking, how do you say this ____. Having a phrase book would aid tremendously. Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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