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Arabic Odyssey | ||
Tags: Arabic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4931 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes  Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 1 of 7 14 June 2013 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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With some reluctance, I've added another language to my list: Arabic
Why? It is something that I've considered for awhile, and given that I know almost nothing about the Middle East, it's an important language to know. Without concrete goals, I won't be able to get far, but I don't really have any real expectations about my ability in this language. I could say that I want to be able to read Arabic newspapers or books and be able to converse with natives in their language, but Arabic, like Chinese, can describe many different languages. Modern Standard Arabic is the language of the media and books. Each nation where Arabic is the official language or is predominantly spoken, has their own colloquial dialect. Classical Arabic is the language of the Quran. Which one to choose? So to begin: I want to learn the Arabic alphabet. If I can learn the Arabic alphabet, I can read Arabic in its original form, and not depend on a non-standard romanization. Here we go.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4653 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 2 of 7 14 June 2013 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Check out my Arabic log. Half a year ago, I was in your position... :)
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| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4931 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 3 of 7 15 June 2013 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the reply. I'll take a look for it. :)
By the way, Mods, can you move this to the appropriate forum? I erroneously posted this in the General Discussion forum when I wrote the initial entry. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4931 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 4 of 7 15 June 2013 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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So my first day of learning the alphabet concerned learning only four symbols.
ا ب ت ث Each symbol can be expressed in four different ways: by itself, at the beginning of the word, in the middle of a word, and at the end. There seem to be 28 or 29 separate symbols and a number of syllable sounds that can be written with them depending upon marks written above or below the symbol. In that sense, it reminds me of Tibetan writing. One discovery I've made is that iOS is much more convenient to write Arabic, than a Windows machine. Also Arabic is written from right to left. A very interesting language. Edited by zhanglong on 15 June 2013 at 6:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4931 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 5 of 7 17 June 2013 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today's letters:
ج ح د ز و ذ I'm on the shore of a vast ocean and slowly going forth. With a script where every letter connects to another, it's not so easy to distinguish which letter is which (at least not yet) , but with enough patience, I know I'll learn this. I'm demoing an app that purports to teach the Arabic alphabet, but it only teaches the letter in isolation. I'll check out the FSI Arabic materials tomorrow... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4653 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 6 of 7 18 June 2013 at 10:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Note down the layout of the Arabic keyboard, switch to it, open Open Office (it supports Arabic fonts better than MS Office) and try writing down some letters, you'll see which letter is which.
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| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4931 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 7 of 7 18 June 2013 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks! شـُكرا I'll give it a try. How are your studies these days? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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