Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Arabic Parallel Text for L/R in the Works

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
56 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
DavidW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6329 days ago

318 posts - 458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu

 
 Message 49 of 56
09 March 2011 at 7:23pm | IP Logged 
I didn't know about that. It's a recording of part 1 of 'The Days,' which corresponds to
about the first 70 pages of the book (~400 pages). It would have been good to know about
it before, but I don't think it changes much now.

Edited by DavidW on 09 March 2011 at 7:23pm

1 person has voted this message useful



DavidW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6329 days ago

318 posts - 458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu

 
 Message 50 of 56
14 March 2011 at 7:07pm | IP Logged 
The recording of 'The Days' is now for the most part finished. Still waiting for the
copyrights to be cleared for the translation however. One they are obtained, the book
should be on Amazon within a couple of weeks.

We are looking to start recording the next book. Are there any other Arabic learing
materials you have that you wish had audio? We could get in touch with the publisher and
produce audio to accompany the book.

Edited by DavidW on 15 March 2011 at 3:20am

1 person has voted this message useful



Andrew C
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
naturalarabic.com
Joined 4993 days ago

205 posts - 350 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 51 of 56
17 March 2011 at 2:05pm | IP Logged 
daristani wrote:
I don't know how relevant it might be to your project, but there's an audio version of "Al-Ayyam" available for download at the following page:

http://www.iu.edu/~celtie/arabic_archive.html

(It's about halfway down the page, under "literature". Whether it's complete or not I have no idea.)


I was listening to this recording of al-Ayyaam - it is excellent, except for one really annoying thing: At the beginning of every page/chapter the reader says the page/chapter number in English! I find this so patronising - he's just been reading complex sentences in Arabic then thinks we won't be able to understand if he read the page number in Arabic ...grrrrrr! Praps I should take a chill pill...
1 person has voted this message useful



DavidW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6329 days ago

318 posts - 458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu

 
 Message 52 of 56
29 March 2011 at 1:02am | IP Logged 
I thought I would give an update. The recording of 'The Days' is has been finished for
some time, and is available from Majed's site: www.mijobooks.com. We are still waiting
to hear back about the rights to the English translation for the bilingual book.

Whilst there is a lot of high-quality writing by well-known modern Arabic-language
writers in the public domain, getting the permissions to the translations of these
works, which are rarely in the public domain, has proved to be the most challenging and
time-consuming aspect of this undertaking. As an alternative, Majed is thinking about
translating a number of public domain English language works into modern idiomatic
Arabic. An alternative is to forego the full English translation, and provide a
translation of only the difficult Arabic words. If you have a background in computer
linguistics, you might be able to me with building a system to do this automatically
here

I have also contacted a couple of universities here in the UK where Arabic is taught,
to see if there is any possibility for collaboration on a project like this.
2 persons have voted this message useful



CaucusWolf
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5075 days ago

191 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese

 
 Message 53 of 56
29 March 2011 at 4:58am | IP Logged 
DavidW wrote:
Are there any other Arabic learing
materials you have that you wish had audio? We could get in touch with the publisher and
produce audio to accompany the book.


I'd really like Vol 3 of the FSI MWA course to get audio. That would be awesome if I could actually go through the entire FSI course.(because I wont do it without the audio.)
1 person has voted this message useful



TDC
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6724 days ago

261 posts - 291 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French
Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian

 
 Message 54 of 56
03 April 2011 at 2:11am | IP Logged 
I think you should get as literal a translation done as possible, instead of just using the normal version. In the Alice example, already in the second sentence there is a divergence and unless you already know what it means, the translation won't help you.

The English says: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading
The German says: Das Buch, das ihre Schwester las, gefiel ihr nicht;

So, to help the learner, the English should say something more like: She didn't like the book that her sister was reading.

Or: The book, that her sister was reading, wasn't pleasing to her (She didn't like it). With a gloss for where the two languages express the ideas differently.
1 person has voted this message useful



DavidW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6329 days ago

318 posts - 458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu

 
 Message 55 of 56
03 April 2011 at 3:48am | IP Logged 
We have sorted out the rights to 'The Little Prince,' Majed is doing a new translation
for the Arabic. This will be as faithful as possible, without being unnatural. We are
also recording it using new equipment.

We have been searching for other suitable 'easier' works for intermediate students. We
are concentrating now on well-known children's literature from western authors, around
70-200 pages, that are suitable for learners. Majed will then do a translation into
Arabic. We were hoping to find something in the public domain to start with, but the
pickings are slim. Most things I have looked at to date are too literary, or uses dated
language. I found Alice in Wonderland very useful in studying German, but I imagine
translating the rhymes and riddles into Arabic would be very difficult. Obtaining the
permission to use the existing Arabic versions could be weeks of work.

Currently I am looking for an abridged version of Les Miserables. Pinocchio also still
reads well, but is a little long at about 45,000 words. The little prince is 15,000
words, and Alice in Wonderland about 25,000. If anyone else has ideas, I would really
appreciate it. I will also see about getting permission to use the works of a number of
more recent children's authors, like Roald Dahl, whose's works could work well.

Here is a reading of part of 'The Fantastic Mr. Fox', by Roald Dahl, on youtube:
link

Still waiting for the permission for Taha Husseins works, very close now, but once we
get it we'll be doing several of his books.

Edited by DavidW on 03 April 2011 at 2:56pm

1 person has voted this message useful



DavidW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6329 days ago

318 posts - 458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu

 
 Message 56 of 56
03 April 2011 at 2:48pm | IP Logged 
About the Modern Written Arabic audio for volume 3, probably only a few books are sold
each year on Amazon. But maybe many people download it from http://fsi-language-
courses.org . If we can get some numbers about the number of downloads of the third
volume from the site admin, I could see if it would be worthwhile. I will try to contact
them, although if anyone is in contact with them, that might be easier. I don't have any
personal email addresses.


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 56 messages over 7 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 2.3594 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.