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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 6229 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 1 of 70 24 December 2010 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Has anyone out there actually taught themselves Arabic?!?!
Right now I am still trudging through Hungarian ( enjoyably trudging I might add!) .... but my dream to someday conquer Arabic keeps coming back to haunt me! I was hoping to pick it up again next spring. I did take 2 semesters of MSA/Egyptian Arabic at University about 15 years ago but I have long since forgotten pretty much everything I learned there. I have tried self-instruction using FSI Saudi, DLI MSA and Pimsleur but for whatever reason, these methods, which have worked so well for me in so many other languages, proved totally useless to me with Arabic!! So anyone who thinks they HAVE successfully taught themselves Arabic: What methods have you successfully used? What do you think of these courses? Say, If you had to pick one or two of these which would they be? I have heard peripherally that they are all pretty lousy!! ;-) Assimil Arabic with ease DLI MSA 141 Lesson Course FSI Saudi Hijazi Basic Course Teach Yourself Complete Michel Thomas Arabic Linguaphone Arabic Complete ( not PDQ) Living Language Ultimate Arabic The Big Orange "Michigan" Course aka: (EMSA) Elementary Modern Standard Arabic Hippocrene Mastering Arabic Al-Kitaab fii Ta 'allum al-'Arabiyya - A Textbook for Beginning Arabic: Any other words of advice/encouragement would be greatly appreciated!! السلام وشكرا Edited by liddytime on 30 December 2010 at 2:46am 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Kinan Diglot Senior Member Syrian Arab Republic Joined 5566 days ago 234 posts - 279 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, English Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 2 of 70 24 December 2010 at 11:40pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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If something is bugging you then you have to do it and not wait till spring cos it will still haunt you down, so start now.
I find it fascinating how anyone would learn Arabic without actually living in Arabic country, it's so damn hard, stretchable and variable to be learned by yourself. Some advises if you insist on learning it though: 1- study MSA, don't start with a dialect, never think of that. 2- read Arabic forums, they are rich of simple everyday talk..here is the most popular one: startimes2.com 3- watch Arabic series if you have access to them. 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| cmj Octoglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5338 days ago 58 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Arabic (classical), Latin, Italian | Message 3 of 70 25 December 2010 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I'd definitely go with al-Kitaab. It has its flaws, as some are a little too quick to point out, but it's the only series I've encountered that has enough material to take you to an advanced level in MSA. Its main advantage is that it has a huge amount of video and audio material on the DVDs. Even if you don't do all the exercises in the book (I generally pick and choose), the sheer volume of material is worth the price. I also think they do a good job presenting Arabic culture and giving you a vocabulary sufficient to discuss more academic topics, which is what MSA is mainly used for. Although the story of the first book is a little boring, the second and third volumes include long reading and listening passages dedicated to Arabic history and culture. If you find the grammar explanations wanting, as some do, you can always pick up a reference grammar.
I haven't tried Linguaphone, the "Michigan" course or DLI MSA, but I do know something about the other series. DLI Urban Hijazi seems pretty good, but as Kinan says it is probably not a good idea to begin with a dialect. The Assimil with Ease course is legendarily bad, although there is a new version of the Arabic course (at the moment only available in French) which is quite good and which I would recommend if you understand French. TY Arabic is a complete waste of money; it won't get you anywhere and it's terribly paced. They spend several chapters fooling around with greetings and whatnot and then suddenly throw a long Sindbad the sailor story at you with a two page list of vocabulary. Definitely the worst Arabic book I've spent money on. One book that isn't on your list that's worth checking out is Living Language Ultimate Arabic. I've used it as a supplement to al-Kitaab and found it quite good. The first 15 chapters are dedicated to MSA, with one long dialogue per chapter to listen to and assorted exercises and grammar explanations. Then there are five chapters dedicated to each of the following dialects: Iraqi, Saudi, Levantine, and Egyptian. Unfortunately, this material, while valuable, is too condensed and I wish they had included more material for only one or two dialects (Levantine and Egyptian say). It won't get you to as high a level as al-Kitaab, since overall there is much less content, but it's a good place to begin. The only other disappointing thing is that the number of discs is misleading, since the audio for each chapter is effectively tripled. It is played through once at full speed, once at a slower speed, and then the vocabulary items are pronounced individually. The fact that it comes with 8 cds is therefore misleading. Anyway, hope this helps : ) I know how frustrating it is to try and find good materials for Arabic. Edited by cmj on 25 December 2010 at 2:00pm 14 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Hashimi Senior Member Oman Joined 6259 days ago 362 posts - 529 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)* Studies: English, Japanese | Message 4 of 70 25 December 2010 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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None of these courses can teach you to speak Arabic! (except FSI Hijazi) If your goal is to read Arabic, they are OK, but if you want to learn spoken Arabic, then you must forget all these courses. Well, they may help you understand Arabic spoken in TV, radio, etc. but not to converse comfortably with people. @Kinan: If she study MSA without any knowledge of dialects, how can she understand Arabic drama? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Kinan Diglot Senior Member Syrian Arab Republic Joined 5566 days ago 234 posts - 279 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, English Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 5 of 70 25 December 2010 at 5:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I am not saying she should not learn a dialect, I said she should not START with a dialect. I live in Syria and I still hear new words every single day so how would she cope with that?
I didn't specify drama, there are many historical series spoken in MSA, and besides, knowing MSA won't make it a huge problem for her understanding dialects in series. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6229 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 6 of 70 25 December 2010 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yeah.... I'm waiting until Spring because my wife and I are going to Hungary in March, So I'm trying to learn as much Hungarian as possible before then without any other languages to trip me up!! Arabic is hard, but it has always been so darn interesting to me. I love traveling in the Mid-East and there are few things as rewarding as busting out with a sentence of perfect Arabic!! ( I've gotten some great meze this way!!) I checked out starttimes2.com... It's WAYYY over my head right now, but thanks for the link!
Thanks for the tips!!! I have heard SUCH mixed things about Al-Kitaab but I believe the negative comments may have been from people who had little prior experience tackling a difficult language such as Arabic! I have seen Ultimate Arabic. I too was annoyed by the "tripling" of the Audio!! I've also heard that Assimil Arabic is absolutely horrible... I still find it amazing how little quality Arabic instructional material there is!! One would think this would have been remedied in the last 20 years with all of the US military activity in the Middle East... but nope . .....
I agree, I prefer to start with MSA and then tweak it to whichever dialect I need. When I took Arabic in school that is what we did; we learned MSA for grammar, reading etc.. but when we spoke in class the vocabulary inevitably gravitated towards the Egyptian dialect. It will be a while until I'm at a point where I can understand TV anyways! Side note: I'm a "he" not a "she"... I just like the picture!! ;-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| cmj Octoglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5338 days ago 58 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Arabic (classical), Latin, Italian | Message 7 of 70 25 December 2010 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
To borrow from a certain former Secretary of Defence: You learn a language with the resources you have, not with the resources you wish you had. Al Kitaab certainly has a lot of problems, but it gets the job done, which is the main thing. Nothing else I have seen can take you beyond a low intermediate stage. You might begin with something else (although nothing else is really any better for MSA -- there are however some good traditional grammar courses for learning to read Quranic Arabic), but you'll probably have to eventually turn to al-Kitaab. AS to Assimil, I couldn't understand all the hate, since I'd been working with the new French version (pub. 2005) which I found great for beginning. Then I stumbled across a copy of Arabic with Ease (based on the older French course) in a bookstore in Geneva. It deserves all the scorn heaped on it and more; a complete embarrassment to the Assimil name. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| wilzy Newbie United States Joined 5183 days ago 15 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Turkish | Message 8 of 70 26 December 2010 at 7:46am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Technically, I shouldn't be answering because I haven't learned Arabic yet, but I hope to be there in another 6-8 months.
I like the old Assimil course. The problem for lots of people is that it is in two volumes and the second volume is only in French. I agree that the recordings are pretty awful, but they get better with volume 2 when the main character (who is really bad) does less speaking. The first volume on its own will not take you far, but it is still a good base in my opinion. I am about two thirds of the way through the second volume and think it is really effective. The books have a number of strengths -they are in handwriting rather than typeface, they give a solid foundation in grammar, and have a lot of the usual Assimil "glue" language that holds conversations together. I also like the Munther Younes book Kalila w Dimna for reading and listening practice. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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