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Arabic chicken-and-egg problem. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5384 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 1 of 13 07 March 2010 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi all,
I'm just starting my MSA studies--currently trying to work through Teach Yourself Beginner's Arabic Script. I do enjoy it so far, but I'm feeling a bit of frustration in "getting off the ground." I guess my central issue is a sort of "chicken and egg" issue. Many vowels are unwritten and implied by context. You need to know the word through its consonant structure. And memory. But building this memory is hard when you don't know how to say the word! Nevermind the difficulties of learning Arabic phenomes from a book. So I can't really memorize new vocab until I can read the script, and I can't really read the script without knowing the vocab. And even as I learn it, I have no idea if I'm really saying things correctly. So two questions really: I've thought about finding a conversation exchange partner to help with learning phenomes, but the only ones I've found online are from the Maghreb. After achieving a decent level with MSA, I want to study either the Levantine or Egyptian dialects, so would it be more help or hurt to learn pronunciation from someone from Morocco or Tunisia? Second, any clarifications on how to solve the frustrations of getting started with Arabic script? I guess I'm just looking for any resources, advice, or plain old "nose to the grindstone, old boy, it'll clear up" encouragement from those who've done this before. Thanks! Edited by robsolete on 07 March 2010 at 5:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5676 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 2 of 13 07 March 2010 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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As per the first question ... my general feeling tells me that, at this point, accents
don't matter. In the beginner stages, you wont be able to distinguish between accents. As long as you start immersing yourself with your preferred accents by B2 you should be alright. After that, your pronunciation may harden. The script bothers most people. With enough effort and time, it will eventually present itself. Others may be able to suggest more efficient ways of dealing with the script. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kinan Diglot Senior Member Syrian Arab Republic Joined 5565 days ago 234 posts - 279 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, English Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 3 of 13 07 March 2010 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Like Paskwc said, it doesn't matter a lot now if you are pronouncing it right or not, it will solve itself later.
Memorizing the vowlels can be a challenge but it's worth taking. 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 4 of 13 07 March 2010 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you're worried about the phonemes, I highly recommend the FSI Levantine Pronunciation
course. I used it just a bit when I was starting out, and it was a great help. It's boring, but it's not incredibly long, and the only stuff you really need to drill hard are the emphatic and throaty consonants. As far as the script goes, I think your problem might be that you're using TY. It's a good book, but I think it works better as a revision of the script and introduction to the language building from that knowledge than as a very first book. I would try to find something like Awde and Samano if I were you, that just teaches the script quickly, fully, and efficiently; then move on to TY. Or if that's not possible, just focus on the letters in TY at first, then go back and revise and study the other stuff. Don't get discouraged, the script really isn't all that hard once you get used to it. It's effortless for me now, and I haven't been at this that long. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6864 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 5 of 13 08 March 2010 at 10:13am | IP Logged | ||
I've heard that in the Arabic speaking world, there is quite an accent divide between the North Africans and Middle Easterners. For example, an Algerian and a Saudi having a chat would be like the Queen of England and a hillbilly having a chat in terms of how different their accents would be. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5384 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 6 of 13 08 March 2010 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Furora: I've heard the same, which is why I hesitate about learning how to pronounce my "Alif Baa Thaa"s from someone with a Maghrebi dialect.
But as Paskwc and others mention, it probably doesn't matter too much at this point since I won't be able to tell them apart for a year or so anyway. And I would assume that most Arabic-speaking foreign students in the U.S. will be educated to the point where they would know the "standard" vocabulary/pronunciation used in print and news as well as their native dialect. @Woodpecker: Thanks a lot for the recommendations, I'll check them out. A follow up question: when you first started, did you use the "baby steps" script with annotated short vowels, then "graduate" to the standard script? Or did you just plunge into the standard script from the beginning. I can see pros and cons for either method, but I guess I would prefer to not use the "crutch" of vowel annotation for too long unless it was a really big help at first. Anyway, thanks a ton for the responses. I also find it funny that most of the folks who commented here are studying Spanish as well. For those of you who are fluent in Arabic, how much of a "vocabulary discount" do you find when studying Spanish, with those historical "Moorish" loanwords? Not that it would help me at all, I'm just curious. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kinan Diglot Senior Member Syrian Arab Republic Joined 5565 days ago 234 posts - 279 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, English Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 7 of 13 08 March 2010 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | ||
Not much really, just few words like azucar, aceituna etc.. I find Spanish vocabulary very interesting and beautiful so i learn them fast. 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 8 of 13 08 March 2010 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't really think of the short vowels as baby steps, actually. That doesn't strike me as a helpful approach. They're a fundamental part of the word, and you have to know them even if you're a native speaker. I'm solidly intermediate now, and I still short vowels on all my wordlists and all other vocab things for all words whose forms do not imply the short voweling. I would probably just confuse you if I went too far into technical details, but as you will discover, Arabic has a very neat word derivation system. Once you master it, probably 50% of all new vocabulary can be pronounced without ever checking the short vowels. But I expect that for the other 50%, I'll be using the dictionary for a long time to come. There's no other way to ensure my pronunciation is correct. Another thing to keep in mind is that your brain will learn to ignore the short vowels quite quickly once it knows a word. For example, I do lots of newspaper-based stuff, so I've seen the word رئيس - president, hundreds of times (because Mubarak is on every single front page every day in Egypt). Even when it pops up in educational materials with voweling, I certainly don't stop to process them. My brain already knows the word and how it sounds. So basically, use them as much as you need to. Once you know the word, you know its pronunciation, so you don't need them. Until you know the word, you don't know its pronunciation, so you need them. It sounds scary at first, but basically the voweling thing works itself out very nicely in the end. You just have to use a dictionary a lot for a while.* Good luck with your studies! The road ahead is long and fraught with peril, but it's also wildly entertaining. *And even that's not strictly true, since any good textbook uses full voweling or transliteration when it introduces new words. If yours doesn't, burn it. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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