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Learn to Read Arabic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6469 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 1 of 5 02 November 2012 at 10:50pm | IP Logged |
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I just published my book "Learn to Read Arabic", available as an
ebook or paperback on Lulu. This book teaches the complete Arabic alphabet in easy, step-by-step lessons, one letter at a time, with plenty of opportunities for practise. There is also a chapter on optional ligatures like the Laam-Miim. See a preview of the book at http://bit.ly/read_Arabic_preview - you can use this to start studying and see if you like the method. Note that various national Amazon store will also sell this book in the future, but right now they have an old version that I wasn't happy with and which I much improved now. If you live in Europe and find Lulu shipping costs too high, and don't want an ebook version, I may be able to ship the book more cheaply from Berlin; send me a pm. I am grateful to Arekkusu and Irishpolyglot, who had many very good suggestions for improvement. The remaining mistakes are all mine. Please use this thread for feedback on the book. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4431 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 2 of 5 02 November 2012 at 10:58pm | IP Logged |
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Put the solutions a page over, and don't make the first exercises so thick. Perhaps add writing direction
and something about dotting and crossing letters after the word is written then putting the diacritics on. Do you study Arabic at all? It's not in your profile and you only have two articles on your (lovely) website about it, and I wonder how you could be writing about something you're not studying. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6469 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 3 of 5 02 November 2012 at 11:17pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, mahasiswa. I considered moving the solutions, but then the book would have too
much blank space, or exercises and solutions would be disconnected, making it hard to use as an ebook. I studied Arabic and it is in my profile (EDIT: sorry, realized it was out of date), but I am not an expert at it, as I already mention in the book itself (page 3); I enlisted several native Arabic speakers and Arabic teachers to ensure that what I'm teaching is correct. I do consider myself an expert in designing courses, making things easy to understand and easy to remember. For this reason, Innovative Language Learning LLC hired me to develop an Arabic course for them in the past, so this is not my first project related to Arabic. I mention both writing direction and the dotting/crossing bit on page 6. Do you think I should have written about it in a different place? Edited by Sprachprofi on 02 November 2012 at 11:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4431 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 4 of 5 02 November 2012 at 11:48pm | IP Logged |
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Not at all, it's obvious I overlooked all the problems I had. I was not judging your capacity to teach it, I
just didn't see Arabic as something that was in your grasp until now (was it not studies Spanish, Swahili and some other language before now on your profile?) and I obviously didn't read the text much, rather looked at the pictures, to see that you explained the direction, dotting and crossing. The standard set by Jane Wightwick's Mastering Arabic series shows it in a 3-step diagram and is a visibly distinct, hand- writing font. I was expecting to see this since her resource was the first resource I ever used to study Arabic and all my other resources are readers or lessons in vocabulary and grammar, not writing individual characters. And because I can't view the whole book, I wonder whether you were able to include the special instances of kaf, where it stretches to become really big! This is the last thing I learned about Arabic script and I never use it. Were you able to include other fonts? Some fonts used by al-arabiya and al-jazeera are mostly regular with very abstract forms of the strong letters. Wightwick and another Arabic textbook author (I forget who) provide exercises of distinguishing which signs, written in various fonts, contain specific words presented before the diagrams in print. Finally, were you able to include the rules involving vertical advertisments and shop-signs? Edited by mahasiswa on 02 November 2012 at 11:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6469 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 5 of 5 03 November 2012 at 5:53pm | IP Logged |
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My short profile next to posts used to say "Studies: Spanish, Swahili, Japanese" but
Arabic was in my extended profile when you click my name. It's now in both. I didn't cover calligraphic or handwritten variations of letters, only the standard forms that students are likely to encounter on the web or in print. The book is not intended as a reference or comprehensive resource, it's intended as a quick start for beginners who haven't even started to learn Arabic words yet. My goal is to allow them to feel comfortable reading Arabic words as quickly as possible, so that they can start using their textbook - almost all Arabic textbooks neglect to properly teach the alphabet, they just provide a table of letters, a few words of explanation and the next lesson already requires students to be able to read Arabic comfortably. The vast majority of the book is in two different Arabic fonts. Additionally, I have included many photos of real-world usage, e. g. Arabic shop signs, street signs, product labels and so on, without further discussion. I would have liked to include reading exercises using more fonts, but I found that many of them are not made for use with vowelled texts; the tashkeel will show up in inappropriate places or obscure part of the letters. However, I am certain that students will be able to recognize the letters in all but the most decorative of fonts. Edited by Sprachprofi on 03 November 2012 at 5:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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