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Arabic in bite-sized parts

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Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4648 days ago

518 posts - 636 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English

 
 Message 25 of 152
27 February 2013 at 5:13pm | IP Logged 
Last night, I dreamed of Arabic script. The word was ذلذلذ, so pretty much nonsense as far as I know...

I found a bookstore which has Arabic textbooks in Polish, I might check it out.

For fun, I read a novel which is a vision of an Arabic-dominated future. The title is „Allah 2.0”.

EDIT: Anki card total is 170, most of which have my voice recorded. 14 cards today at 100%, 38 cards tomorrow.


New words
li-mada لماذا why
mata متى when

Some words which sound the same in English and in Arabic:

كسكس kuskus
جني djinn (sg.)
جن‎ djinn (pl.)
مارد‎ marid
عفريت ifrit (sg) -> عفاريت is the plural

Edited by Zireael on 27 February 2013 at 5:23pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4648 days ago

518 posts - 636 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English

 
 Message 26 of 152
28 February 2013 at 7:32pm | IP Logged 
Here is a list of Arabic word roots I found.

A minimal pair قلم qalam vs. كلم kalam

The worst word I've encountered so far: Sana'a صنعاء‎ has two damned hamzas. Shit! I won't even attempt to pronounce TWO glottal stops in a single word (I only get glottal stops in English words, when it's in a linguistic context)

عدن Aden

Found an interesting website with basic information about Arabic: http://arabic.desert-sky.net/index.html. At last I know how to pronounce عيد ميلاد سعيد....

Two Arabic sentences from today:
هل تأكلون كسكس أنتم   (علا اليمن)؟
انا يوجبني كسكس

No typos, no fixes by Sarah.
Sarah says that antuma can be safely deleted from the first sentence. The addition in brackets is mine after I wondered why she first thought it was just a grammatical exercise for me (and btw, I learned something about Yemen in her reply).

Reorganizing my Anki deck, since it's grown to 170 cards and I need to keep tabs on my words :)

15 days of using Anki behind me and I'm very pleased that I found it, it's brilliant for reviewing.

I've started thinking of doing a secondary deck, Polish → Arabic.

New words
The order is IPA pronunciation - Arabic spelling - meaning.

Darasa درس he studied
Dars درس lesson
Mudarris مدرّس teacher

Habibi حبيبي darling
Habibti حبيبتي darling (to a woman)

Nur نور light
Walad ولد boy

Nur aini نور عيني light of my eyes

Yadʒri يجري he runs
Yafaal يفعل he does, he makes
Yahtaadʒ يحتاج he needs sth
Yantazir ينتظر he waits
Yamil يعمل he works
Yashrab يشرب he drinks
Yataa'llam يتعلّم he learns
Yatbux يطبخ he cooks
Yuhdiru يحضر he brings
Yuxallis يخلّص he finishes
Yuriid يريد he wants

Edited by Zireael on 28 February 2013 at 7:34pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4648 days ago

518 posts - 636 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English

 
 Message 27 of 152
02 March 2013 at 4:17pm | IP Logged 
Notes based on Arabic FAQ from http://arabic.desert-sky.net/index.html.
Short vowels are usually not indicated in writing.For example, looking at the word فلفل, you would see "f-l-f-l" and not know what vowels come in between those letters. The good news is, this gets easier with time and practice. And if you memorize the verb forms (more on them below), that really helps in figuring out the correct pronunciations for lots of words.

Therefore, a beginning student would see كتب as k-t-b, and not know which vowels to insert between letters. This word could be "kataba" (he wrote), "kutiba" (it was written), or "kutub" (books). How do you know which one it is? Well, if you're an absolute beginner, you won't know all the possible pronunciations, and you simply won't know how to pronounce it without checking a dictionary or asking a native speaker. This is frustrating, but as you learn more vocabulary and grammar, things will get easier. Once you gain more knowledge of Arabic, you'll know that كتب could be a verb in the regular past tense (kataba) or the passive voice (kutiba), or a noun (kutub). Then you'll figure out the correct pronunciation from context.
Learning the verb forms as soon as you can will also help with this. You'll know all the patterns for conjugating the different verb types and deriving certain words (like active/passive participles) from verbs. For example, you'll know that form 3 verbs are pronounced يُفاعِلُ in the present tense. Then when you see يغادر, you'll know the pronunciation without having to look it up. Still, when you see a form 1 verb you don't know, you will have to look it up in the dictionary to know the pronunciation of the present-tense conjugation. But basically, reading Arabic will get easier with time and knowledge.

Stylistically Arabic is also complicated; it's quite common for sentences to go on for a paragraph, so that by the time you reach the end you have to remind yourself what the original subject of the sentence was! The Arabic writing style is also a lot more "flowery" than the way English is usually written. So writing in Arabic is quite different from writing in English, and it takes a lot of practice to write in a smooth, natural style.

Differences between the MSA and the dialect that I noticed (I referred to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Arabic)

* no case endings
* vowel length doesn't seem to matter
* third syllable from the end is stressed
* ta marbuta usually not pronounced
… or is it simply the formal short pronunciation described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language?

30 Anki cards today, 15 tomorrow. The gaps are getting bigger and bigger, the average is 12 days, the max is 27 days (nearly a month!).

New words
Bada بعد after
Hatta حتى until
Huna هنا here
Lakin لكن but
Rubbama ربما maybe
Shay' شيء something

Aasal عسل honey

P.S. Sarah told me the second letter in yodʒeboni is ع, so I can finally stop misspelling it.
1 person has voted this message useful



Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4648 days ago

518 posts - 636 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English

 
 Message 28 of 152
04 March 2013 at 7:22pm | IP Logged 
Lesson 5, 04.03.2013
I impressed Sarah by writing اين انتِ؟؟؟ on FB while waiting for her to show up.

I read my homework aloud for Sarah (and in doing so, I discover a few irregularities in the paradigm of قال qaala and نام naama; more precisely, it's a disappearing alif)
We cover the future tense – it's formed by adding a sa س prefix to the present forms or adding the word sawfa سوف before a present form.

New words
The order is: IPA pronunciation – Arabic spelling – meaning.
Qul قل say!
Kul كل eat!
Arsel ارسل send!

Sawfa سوف will

P.S. Next meeting – speaking. And Sarah promised to find me some handouts for writing, since my handwriting is atrocious in any language I write :P
1 person has voted this message useful



Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4648 days ago

518 posts - 636 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English

 
 Message 29 of 152
07 March 2013 at 10:34am | IP Logged 
Is there a way to put a top limit on the break in Anki? I.e. I don't want the breaks to be larger than 1,5mo.

Anki card total 180 and will probably rise as I dissect Sarah's recent FB post :P

Edited by Zireael on 07 March 2013 at 10:35am

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Takato
Tetraglot
Senior Member
HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5045 days ago

249 posts - 276 votes 
Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishB2, GermanB2, Japanese

 
 Message 30 of 152
08 March 2013 at 11:59am | IP Logged 
Zireael wrote:
I won't even attempt to pronounce TWO glottal stops in a single word

Why not?

Zireael wrote:
I've started thinking of doing a secondary deck, Polish → Arabic.

Why not use the same deck you use for Arabic → Polish? Or do you not mind having another deck to go through?

Zireael wrote:
Is there a way to put a top limit on the break in Anki? I.e. I don't want the breaks to be larger than 1,5mo.

Quoted from Anki site: "This is a good thing. If you have successfully remembered a card after a one month wait, chances are you’ll remember it again after a longer wait, too." So I don't think you could put a limit as it would go against the mindset the creator of Anki has.

Of course if you don't want to have them over 1.5 month, you can always press the smaller interval. It will probably be like the half of it (like pressing Easy sending the card to 81.25 days in the future and Good sending it to 37.5 days).

Edited by Takato on 08 March 2013 at 12:03pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4648 days ago

518 posts - 636 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English

 
 Message 31 of 152
08 March 2013 at 1:18pm | IP Logged 
Takato wrote:
Zireael wrote:
I won't even attempt to pronounce TWO glottal stops in a single word

Why not?


Because I can only get the sound right in English words, and I know no English word which has two glottal stops.
The joy of having a slight speech impediment stemming from my hearing loss..

Takato wrote:
Zireael wrote:
I've started thinking of doing a secondary deck, Polish → Arabic.

Why not use the same deck you use for Arabic → Polish? Or do you not mind having another deck to go through?

My current deck is Arabic -> English, so can I only insert main forms, and not the inflected forms. By using Polish -> Arabic, I'd be able to insert inflected forms too.

A separate deck would make it easier for me to organize stuff and to keep tabs on it. Not to mention it'd probably be smaller than Arabic -> English, as there's only a handful of words which I can recall offhand (and for the dual, there are no Polish equivalents ;P)

1 person has voted this message useful



Takato
Tetraglot
Senior Member
HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5045 days ago

249 posts - 276 votes 
Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishB2, GermanB2, Japanese

 
 Message 32 of 152
08 March 2013 at 10:37pm | IP Logged 
Zireael wrote:
Because I can only get the sound right in English words, and I know no English word which has two glottal stops.

You should learn uh-oh and then you would know an English word which has two glottal stops. :P Although you probably already are having it in Polish considering that (like Polish) Hungarian is in the same Sprachbund with English, and Hungarian has that glottal stop in a word which means "uh-oh."

Zireael wrote:
The joy of having a slight speech impediment stemming from my hearing loss..

Did you learn the English word with one glottal stop when you already had lost your hearing or prior to that?

Zireael wrote:
My current deck is Arabic -> English, so can I only insert main forms, and not the inflected forms. By using Polish -> Arabic, I'd be able to insert inflected forms too.

[...] for the dual, there are no Polish equivalents ;P)

I don't get you one bit. Are there Arabic verb forms which are impossible to distinguish in English? You could always write "you two" for second person dual forms, no?

Edited by Takato on 08 March 2013 at 10:43pm



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