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Arabic Study Group

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napoleon
Tetraglot
Senior Member
India
Joined 5013 days ago

543 posts - 874 votes 
Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu
Studies: French, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 89 of 104
07 June 2014 at 10:07pm | IP Logged 
Hey tomgosse, pengin.

The way this group works is simple enough.
We study on our own and write about our progress in this log. You can start a personal log if you want, but we would appreciate updates(in this log) from time to time. :)

This group lets us know that there are others out there studying Arabic. That itself is motivating! :)

As for books, Nancy is using Wightwick's "Mastering Arabic." I'm halfway through the first Madinah book.
You can study any book you like.

Welcome to the Arabic Study Group!

Edited by napoleon on 07 June 2014 at 10:08pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



nancydowns
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3919 days ago

184 posts - 288 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 90 of 104
07 June 2014 at 10:48pm | IP Logged 
Yes, Welcome!

I am sorry to say that I am about to take a bit of hiatus because I am going on a trip for work, and I don't know how much time I will have to be here,
but we'll see!

I have had some excitement on the Arabic front in the past few days. I was driving in a part of the city where I am that is very international, you can
see shops and restaurants all along this road where there are people of different nationalities. I saw a market with Arabic writing, so I stopped in, and
I met a wonderful family from Iraq. I have been back there three days in a row!!! Today was by accident because yesterday, I left something there, and I
had to go back. But the husband had to leave for a bit, so the lady and I got to talk for a long time, and she told me about their escape from Iraq in
the early 90s.   They are very sweet, helpful people. She was helping me a bit with my Arabic yesterday.

I'm not sure if I want to start conversation lessons with her or not because I don't want to learn a dialect yet, just the Modern Standard Arabic, but it
was neat talking to her, so we'll see what works on when I get back into town.

I am on Chapter 10 of "Mastering Arabic" but my study partner (she's not on this forum) and I decided to take a break from the book for now and work on
vocabulary and making our own sentences and so on while we are on this trip. Chapter 10 just got crazy!!! : ) So we are feeling like we need to let
things settle in a bit before taking more in.

Good luck with your studies, I'll be anxious to hear about them.
2 persons have voted this message useful



pengin
Newbie
United States
Joined 3820 days ago

13 posts - 14 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Arabic (Levantine)

 
 Message 91 of 104
08 June 2014 at 1:21am | IP Logged 
6-7:
I finished reading Arabic Alphabet by Awde and Samano, so now I have a good idea of the alphabet
although I will definitely need more practice writing it. Things started getting a little shaky when I
was learning about the hamza, and the sun and moon letters and assimilation, but hopefully that will
come with exposure, lol.

I am currently looking for a book that has Arabic sentences in script and their English translation.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

Now that I have a fuzzy idea of what the alphabet letters are I am going to look at the pronunciation
of them.


Edited by pengin on 08 June 2014 at 1:22am

1 person has voted this message useful



napoleon
Tetraglot
Senior Member
India
Joined 5013 days ago

543 posts - 874 votes 
Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu
Studies: French, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 92 of 104
08 June 2014 at 8:30am | IP Logged 
I did a couple of lessons from FSI's "Levantine Arabic-Introduction to Pronunciation". It's a short book. Best of all, it's free!
I'm going to go to a print shop and have it printed out, like I did for the FSI French Basic Course. Courses from FSI are usually very good, although they look old and unattractive.

You will find the book at the fsi-language-courses website.

As for a book that has Arabic sentences along with English translations, you could look for bilingual readers. You'll get some sentences from most grammar books as well.

Edited by napoleon on 08 June 2014 at 8:35am

1 person has voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4886 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 93 of 104
08 June 2014 at 9:20am | IP Logged 
The FSI Levantine pronunciation guide looks good. I tried the big MSA written cource a
few years ago, but ran into problems pretty quickly, mostly due to the lack of an answer
key.

Also, I'm making attempt number 4 here at Arabic, so I might be lurking in your group a
bit! My goal this summer is to keep it light and easy, and listen to audio tapes as a
refresher. Come the fall I'll decide what long term steps to take, if any.


2 persons have voted this message useful



napoleon
Tetraglot
Senior Member
India
Joined 5013 days ago

543 posts - 874 votes 
Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu
Studies: French, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 94 of 104
08 June 2014 at 11:10am | IP Logged 
Welcome back kanewai!
Remember the old French & Arabic group we had? Those were the days, eh? :)
1 person has voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4886 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 95 of 104
08 June 2014 at 12:42pm | IP Logged 
wa asalaam aleikum Napoleon! I was debating between adding either Hindi or Arabic to my
summer schedule, so I figured either way I'd cross paths with you again : )
2 persons have voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4886 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 96 of 104
21 June 2014 at 3:13am | IP Logged 
I finished Michel Thomas's Arabic Foundation this morning. It was an enjoyable course,
and I can easily recommend it. It didn't go very deep into the language, and only
touched on verbs at the very end. Still, it was a nice re-introduction.

I used an online Egyptian Dictionary to look up and
keep track of vocabulary; this helped a lot in being able to fit the MT course into my
overall understanding of Arabic.

I noticed big differences in pronunciation between Egyptian and Standard, but only some
difference in vocabulary. At least at this beginning level I don't think dialect
switching is going to be a big issue.

The bigger challenge is that the courses all approach the language from a different
starting point, and so it's hard to see how it all fits together.

Michael Thomas, for instance, emphasizes modals and participles more than verbs. So
sample sentences might be:

inna faahim - I am understanding (pronoun + participle)
inta faahim - you are understanding
huwa faahim - he is understanding
inta mish faahim   - you are not understanding

They only touch upon the imperfect in the last lesson. Which I should probably listen
to a few more times!

Pimsleur, on the other hand, jumps right into the bi-imperfect (without ever telling
you what it is). So the sample sentences are:

inna fihim - I understand
inta tifham - you understand
huwa yifhim - he understands
inta matifhamsh - you don't understand

Which is a lot more complicated - it's harder to hear the verb root, and the
pronunciation is much trickier.   

I put my notes online, if anyone else is doing Michel Thomas. The blue boxes are the
vocabulary from the course (I integrated it with other notes I had from my last round).

MT Arabic

Edited by kanewai on 21 June 2014 at 3:16am



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