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Magic Key To The Arabic Alphabet ? | ||
Tags: Writing System | Arabic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 6999 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes  1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 10 08 October 2009 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Does anyone except the author (a member of this forum) have experience with it ?
$27 as an audio download. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5810 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 2 of 10 10 October 2009 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I mean, I don't, but I would guess it's not worth 27 dollars. The "magic key" to the Arabic alphabet is basically two-fold. First, a good introductory primer (TY and Awde & Samano are both good) and then a decent amount of exposure to written Arabic.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Al-Malik Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member United Kingdom arabicgenie.com Joined 7133 days ago 221 posts - 294 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French, Arabic (classical) Studies: Mandarin, Persian | Message 3 of 10 10 October 2009 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm honoured to have a thread on my book here at the HTLAL forum and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about "The Magic Key To The Arabic Alphabet". The reason why I did not write about my book on this forum before is that as a long-time member I have great respect for the forum and did not want to come accross as advertising here.
Thanks for the comments. I certainly agree that one can learn the Arabic alphabet with the books you mention. In fact, one can do so even without any books by using freely available resources on the internet. But, I think that my book is a genuine alternative: I spent a lot of time and effort in researching and writing the book and am pretty sure that this is the first time the Arabic alphabet has been taught through memory aids that facilitate retention. While I greatly respect Awde and Samano's work I still think that my book offers something theirs doesn't - namely the opportunity to learn the Arabic writing system without rote memorization and in a fun and quick manner. Of course, some people don't mind rote learning and I'm sure that they'd be fine with using more traditional ways of learning the Arabic script. But I would like to think that I offer a unique and time-saving alternative to learn the Arabic alphabet at good value. Hopefully these comments don't come accross as a marketing message. It's just that I am extremely passionate about teaching Arabic. Please let me know if you have questions about the book or the method - I'll try my best to answer them here. (Before anyone asks: you can find out more about my book and method through the link under my picture on the left.) 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5810 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 4 of 10 10 October 2009 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I'm not used to discussing things with the author, and I must admit I don't know much about the book.
However, I would still argue that memory aids are an odd way to learn a writing system. You're going to have to write out the letters many thousands of times if you want to learn Arabic anyway, so a few more at the start to memorize them won't hurt. You learn a writing system through writing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Al-Malik Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member United Kingdom arabicgenie.com Joined 7133 days ago 221 posts - 294 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French, Arabic (classical) Studies: Mandarin, Persian | Message 5 of 10 10 October 2009 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | ||
I entirely agree with you that the best way to learn a writing system is through writing. The use of memory aids does not mean that you will not have to write the letters; in fact with my book you'll be writing your first few words much faster than with other methods. The crucial difference is that it takes much less effort to learn the letters through the memory aids I present than by merely copying out each letter by hand ad nauseam. The memory aids reduce the effort and time you need to invest to learn the Arabic writing system and make it less of a chore. Of course, learning the Arabic script can be done by rote learning and I do not mean to discount it. But why make it harder than it needs to be? As a language learner I always prefer the easy way to the hard way if both ways lead to the same skill. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7145 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 6 of 10 11 October 2009 at 1:36am | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't seen the book. I didn't know it existed. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
I am all in favour of using a system to help learn any kind of material. If it makes learning the Arabic alphabet easier, I am 100% in favour. I use memory aids to learn just about everything. The information goes into my permanent memory through using it but it goes into my permanent memory much more quickly. And, in the meantime, I can use the information as if it were already learned. Congratulations Al-Malik for writing the book. I will have to get a copy. The alphabet has always dissuaded me from learning Arabic. I hope your book does well. If it helps people learn the Arabic alphabet it is already successful, regardless of how many copies it sells. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7120 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 7 of 10 11 October 2009 at 9:45am | IP Logged | ||
Hi Al-Malik. Congratulations on your book. I have been given a copy of Michel Thomas' Arabic to review, but when I finish it I am planning to continue to learn Arabic, and I was wondering how to go about learning the script, so I will get your book. Arabic is a beautiful language to my ears, and eyes.
Hi Woodpecker. I would strongly disagree. When I first learned Japanese I was still learning the old-fashioned way of repeat, repeat, repeat, and I was having a job getting the kana to stick in my mind. Then I discovered a book by a Michael Rowley that gave mnemonic equivalents for the characters, and it took virtually all the difficulty out of learning them. I was astounded at how powerful mnemonics were. For example, if you look at the character 'ki' in both kana systems, with a little imagination you can actually see that it does look like a key. I have recently found that using mnemonics you can make Chinese characters both in Chinese and Japanese, ridiculously easy to learn. But, in the end, it's horses for courses, I suppose. Some people love mind-maps, others hate them. It's probably the same with mnemonics, but I have found them to be amazingly useful in many aspects of language learning. Edited by Chris on 11 October 2009 at 10:15am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5810 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 8 of 10 11 October 2009 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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I suppose my problem is that I don't feel the abjad is really at all difficult. I learned it in two days with one book (Awde and Samano). Maybe my experience was unusual. However, I doubt it. I'm studying in Egypt right now, and none of the other thirty students on my program have had significant difficulty with the script. At most, it took those that didn't know it a handful of hours of study over the course of a few days to learn it. The abjad is not that difficult, and if you find you can't stomach the two days of copying it takes to learn in, Arabic may not be the language for you. Truly fantastic madness awaits you in the near future. ;-)
And as to the author's assertion that his book gets you writing words significantly faster than other methods, I can definitely declare that a near impossibility. Using the very thorough Teach Yourself book, you write your first word (باب - door) after about 5 minutes of study. I can't imagine he can honestly claim to better that significantly. I feel like trying to find a way to learn to write that consists of anything other than writing is fantastically silly. Just to get your hand to form the shape of the one of the letters correctly, you're going to have to copy it out more than enough times to memorize it in the process. Trying to use fancy mnemonics strikes me as a good way to reduce the efficacy of the process by incorporating an unnecessary complication. I admire the author for trying to find a new approach. However, I would still advise somebody starting Arabic to drop $2 on Half.com on one of the books I mentioned above before dropping $27 on a book that most Arabic students probably won't find much more helpful. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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