|
 |
Modern Standard Arabic grammar | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3846 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 9 of 14 09 April 2015 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Thanks for the clarifications @Stelingo.
Also for @Luso: in this first phase I want a pure grammatical approach. I don't want a method with dialogues. I don't need to speak MSA. I want to read books, news and write instead. I prefer to go deeper in the spoken language only when I have a knowledge of the grammar. I want to know how to read and write phrases like - The camel walks in the desert - The camel drinks the water that his owner gently provided to him and he's very happy because he's not drinking since many days. - If not eating vegetables would have been an insormountable obstacle, the man would have undoubtly raised the point during the latest visit to his master. - My hovercraft is full of scorpions, because it is a well-known fact that in the desert there are no eels. :) Thank you very much for the advices on writing @Luso :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5119 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 10 of 14 09 April 2015 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
In that case check out Arabic Simplified by Arthur T. Upson. It's heavy on grammar and low on dialogs. Some example, are a bit bible-heavy, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5610 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 11 of 14 09 April 2015 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I'd strongly encourage you to consider doing a bit of shadowing alongside your grammatical study.
In general, I think that front-loading grammar as an Arabic student is a very good idea. Arabic grammar is extensive, but fairly consistent and intuitively structured (except for the number system), and nowhere near as hard to master as many folks seem to assume (e.g. most university courses don't introduce complete grammar until late in year two, which I just find baffling). Getting it out of the way early makes the whole task seem much more manageable. That said, the reason I recommend shadowing from the start, even if you have no interest in production, is the difficulty of the pronunciation. The hardest aspect of learning Arabic in the long run is listening, both because of diglossia and because the phonology is so difficult. If you take a grammar-exclusive approach with no audio content, I worry that you're likely to develop bad pronunciation and stress habits, which will make the jump from reading to listening much harder than it should be (it shouldn't actually be that hard, so long as you start listening with properly pronounced MSA material). Even if you really aren't on board with shadowing, I'd at least suggest you run through the FSI Arabic Pronunciation course early on; it's not as helpful as shadowing but still very good. Best courses for shadowing: Linguaphone, EMSA (the big orange textbook from Michigan). Best grammar course with self-teaching exercises that I've seen: Either Haywood + key or the Teach Yourself course from 1943. One other note: Wright is amazing, and very useful for MSA, which is honestly not as distinct from CA as has been suggested above. But it contains no exercises and is very, very academic in style. It's a wonderful tool for the expert, but probably almost useless for a beginner. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3846 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 12 of 14 10 April 2015 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Hi @Doitsjin, I don't find reviews for that book? Is it better than the Haywood?
@Woodpecker, thank you very much for your advices! I indeed don't like shadowing. The FSI pronunciation can be an idea (but I don't like to talk alone :D), I will give it a try. So you did use the Haywood? I'm waiting for @fiolmattias to know what exactly does mean that I need a vocabulary of 4000 words to do the exercises. From the description I read
In my understanding the 4000 words are provided in the book itself and I don't need to know them in advance, and I can use it as a total beginner's book. Is that correct? Is the Teach Yourself from 1943 that comprehensive? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fiolmattias Triglot Groupie Sweden geocities.com/fiolmaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6488 days ago 62 posts - 129 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Arabic (Written) | Message 13 of 14 10 April 2015 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
I might have misunderstood you. You wrote in your first post:
And in that sense Haywood is not good as a phase one book. But if you are willing to learn the vocabulary it is an excellent book! Every chapter is in this formula: Grammar, vocabulary, text, exercises. It is a good book, but if you intend to learn vocabulary and grammar and reading at the same time my favorite book is Stardard Arabic, a elementary-intermediate.... by Schulz. It contains 2 readiing lessons in each chapter. One conversation and one reading text (from the news or a book), and it got the recordings to both. I find the text more up to date than Haywood and the text are more fun to read. But that is for me, Haywood is still a good (but a tad old) book. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3846 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 14 of 14 13 April 2015 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Aaaah ok I see your point now.
I read somewhere that with Arabic you need a much larger vocabulary (like 10.000 words). Once finished the Haywood I will still need a great deal of vocabulary to understand the modern topics, but I expect to know the grammar quite well. I had many different insights. I often read on all these books reviews the advice to start with an ultrabeginner course before to start that book, to avoid being overloaded. Maybe I can just proceed very slowly and remind to myself that it's the wrong language to be in a hurry. 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
