loveroflanguage Groupie United States Joined 5126 days ago 57 posts - 83 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Arabic (Egyptian)
| Message 1 of 10 28 March 2010 at 10:07am | IP Logged |
Hello, all! I am new here. I have been studying Arabic off and on for the past 10 yrs. Now, I am dead set determined, studying everyday, on it. My problem is grammar. I was never good with grammar in school, I think even now, I probably have about a 7th grade level, if that. My question is, do I have to slog thru tons and tons of grammar to learn Arabic or any language? I have tried reading some grammar books and I am sort of okay til they get to things like: making verbs passive, verbs in the Jussive, dual verbs, and on and on. I don't know how I am gonna get thru this!This sucks; I am trying my best to read on but my eyes are crossing and glazing over. Can I come back here and you guys can give me examples of a particular grammar point I don't get because I just don't get some of this stuff. P.S. I am not a total moron, lol! I know verbs, nouns, adj., etc. Its just when you start getting really deep that I lose focus and meaning. I mean, I swear, can't these guys write how to learn a point of grammar in English everybody gets??
JuJu
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snoppingasusual Quadrilingual Hexaglot Groupie Lebanon Joined 5327 days ago 49 posts - 65 votes Speaks: Arabic (Egyptian), French*, English*, Arabic (Written)*, Arabic (Levantine)*, Spanish
| Message 2 of 10 28 March 2010 at 4:33pm | IP Logged |
Well, I can honestly say that your problem stems from the fact that Arabic grammar is
very different from English grammar. I know that a lot of these new grammatical concepts
are difficult to grasp in the early stages of learning, but you will eventually learn to
deal with them. If you need any sort of explanation on a new grammatical rule, then I
will be very glad to help you.
Because I am a native speaker of the Arabic language, I could not offer more helpful
advice. I hope you understand what I am trying to say.
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loveroflanguage Groupie United States Joined 5126 days ago 57 posts - 83 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Arabic (Egyptian)
| Message 3 of 10 29 March 2010 at 12:43am | IP Logged |
Thank you so much! Yes, I understand. I am just worried that without the grammar instruction, how badly that will stop me, or if I should just plod on thru and pray I learn it on the way. Right now, I am concentrating on small bits; I am reading, "Arabic Verbs & Essentials of Grammar 2E" by Jane Wightwick & Gaafar and another one she wrote called, "Easy Arabic Grammar". I am hoping these will help; so far, so good! lol! No major problems yet but I will still need you, so don't forget me!
JuJu
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robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5145 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin
| Message 4 of 10 29 March 2010 at 3:36am | IP Logged |
I haven't started in earnest on Arabic yet, so I can't help you much. But my general impression with languages is that you're always better off learning grammar in context than just out of a book. Arabic surely requires more study for an English native than, say, Spanish or French. But other than doing some basic exercises I think it might be a better use of your time to just try to read Arabic newspapers and use the grammar references to analyze *why* they're written as they are. Once you can do that, try writing similar sentences on your own and, if you can swing it, going over your attempts with a native speaker.
Again, I haven't studied Arabic. But I think that learning grammar in a vacuum is the number one way to STOP studying a language out of sheer frustration and tedium.
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Al-Irelandi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5295 days ago 111 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 5 of 10 29 March 2010 at 1:50pm | IP Logged |
robsolete wrote:
But I think that learning grammar in a vacuum is the number one way to STOP studying a language out of sheer frustration and tedium. |
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I second that.
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Jolly663 Newbie Saudi Arabia Joined 5159 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Arabic (Gulf)*
| Message 6 of 10 01 April 2010 at 8:07am | IP Logged |
Arabic grammars is kind of difficult but not impossible
Keep doing
& I'll be glad to help you if you need
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ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 6857 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical)
| Message 7 of 10 01 April 2010 at 4:34pm | IP Logged |
The best way to learn is by seeing/hearing words used in sentences so you can get context. Studying grammar books is not the way to learn a language. Maybe once you know the language well and want to be more clear on certain aspects THEN you can read a grammar book, but grammar is boring and complex. You brain is built to learn languages, it just needs enough input. After a while you will know that one way of saying something is correct while the other way will just sound wrong. There's no need to know WHY it's wrong unless you want to be a linguistics or grammar teacher or something.
I'm decent at Arabic and I think something that helped me was ignoring all the case endings and just focusing on the actual language. I figured that if people can understand me without adding tanweens and fathas and dammas at the end of words then I don't need to do it. It's just superfluous. Plus no Arabs add those endings in everyday speech anyway. Don't focus on grammar. Just try to understand the meanings of words and get as many examples of how words are used as you can.
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loveroflanguage Groupie United States Joined 5126 days ago 57 posts - 83 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Arabic (Egyptian)
| Message 8 of 10 24 June 2010 at 12:24pm | IP Logged |
I guess my biggest problem is not so much the grammar but that I cannot figure out how to structure sentences and it is frustrating. Is there any one set of particular rules to remember in order to structure a sentence that people will be able to understand me?
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