14 messages over 2 pages: 1 2
tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3847 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 :)
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| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5120 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English
| Message 10 of 14 09 April 2015 at 6:27pm | IP Logged |
tristano wrote:
in this first phase I want a pure grammatical approach. I don't want a
method with dialogues. |
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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.
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| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5611 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.
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| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3847 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
Quote:
The essential study guide to Arabic grammar-- A true classic in the field.In
addition to Qur'an selections, fables, stories, newspaper extracts, letters, and
excerpts from classical and modern Arabic writings are included. The book contains 52
chapters with a vocabulary of over 4,000 words.It will serve as a basis for further
and deeper study of this classical language and its literature; at the same time it
will help to form a good foundation for those who wish to concentrate on the modern
written language of literature and the daily press.This is above all a practical
grammar. It is meant for the beginner who is not familiar with the peculiarities of
the Semetic languages. Nevertheless, it is comprehensive enough for most students'
needs in the first two or three years of study. |
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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?
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| fiolmattias Triglot Groupie Sweden geocities.com/fiolmaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6489 days ago 62 posts - 129 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Arabic (Written)
| Message 13 of 14 10 April 2015 at 3:48pm | IP Logged |
tristano wrote:
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.
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? |
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I might have misunderstood you. You wrote in your first post:
tristano wrote:
My plan is
- first phase: grammar study and writing exercises
- second phase: massive reading and vocabulary learning
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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.
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| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3847 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.
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