If you give an עכבר a كعكة

[Deinonysus]

Arabic does things a bit differently and in fact it seems to handle tenses the same way that Germanic languages do: there are special forms for the past and present tenses, and the future tense is indicated by adding an auxiliary verb to the present tense form.

I Arabic, you add the prefix "sa" to the present tense form to get the future tense. So it is even shorter than with an auxiliary verb.

I believe سَ is a shortened form of the auxiliary verb سَوْفَ, which I guess would make it similar to 'll as a short version of "will" in English.

Edit: Wiktionary says particle, not auxiliary verb, so I think I used the wrong term.

[Deinonysus]

Anki

Clearing my Anki deck the first time was the hard part. It gets easier every day.

• Saturday: 177 cards in 41 minutes
• Sunday: 146 cards in 28 minutes
• Monday: 66 cards in 20 minutes
• Tuesday: 42 cards in 12 minutes

Eating and Drinking

This morning's Pimsleur lesson was very challenging; I learned to say "I would like to eat/drink something" and "Would you (f) like to eat something?" I did get a very small amount of help from Hebrew, but not much. The three-consonant root for "eat" is the same (ʾ-k-l), and the three-letter root for "like" is almost the same (ʾ-h-ḇ in Hebrew, ʾ-ḥ-b in Arabic). The roots for "drink" are different, but they do both coincidentally contain a "sh" sound.

I say "coincidentally" because the Arabic "sh" and Hebrew "sh" come from different proto-semitic consonants. The Hebrew "sh" comes from the Proto-Semitic *š which was probably pronounced "sh". However, *š is merged with *s in Arabic and they are both pronounced like a regular "s". The Arabic "sh" actually comes from *ś, which was actually pronounced /ɬ/ (like the Welsh "ll" sound) in Ancient Hebrew (and probably also in Proto-Semitic); it is just pronounced like a regular "s" in Modern Hebrew and is spelled with a שׂ (not to be confused with ס which has the same sound but comes from Proto-Semitic *s, not *ś). So it is just a coincidence that these two words with the same meaning happen to both have a "sh" sound.

Anyway, these phases were hard for me for a few reasons. First, as I mentioned before, the Arabic present tense uses the same form as the Hebrew future tense. I have not studied the Hebrew future tense, so no help there. But second, the construction is completely different. In Hebrew, the phrases I learned remember use "I want", not "I would like", so there is a different verb used. You use a conjugated form of "want" and then the infinitive of "to eat" or "to drink". But in Arabic, I don't think there even is an infinitive. Instead, you conjugate "like" for the indicative present, and then you conjugate "eat" or drink in the subjunctive! So you are saying something like "I like that I eat" or maybe "I like were I to eat". And I don't think Hebrew even has a subjunctive. So not only are different constructions used, but the construction that one language uses isn't even possible in the other!

Another interesting thing is that the Arabic verb أكل has an alif with both a glottal stop and a long /aː / sound. This seems to trigger creaky voice with an extra glottal stop at the end, almost like it would be written أئكل. I'm interested to see how widespread this phenomenon is. Maybe it's only in this specific word, maybe it's any alif with a glottal stop and long /aː /, or maybe it's any alif with a glottal and a long vowel. I'm sure it varies depending on the speaker's native dialect too.

Gender and definiteness of Arab countries

I am continuing to have trouble remembering the gender of the various Arab countries and whether or not they contain the definite article, so I made a map to help:

Arab gender and definiteness map.png

There are not too many patterns, but there are a few clumps with the same gender together and in particular there's a big horizontal band of feminine countries. Another pattern is that every masculine country except for Lebanon gets the definite Article.

The definite article is much more common in the Arabic names, and of course "the" only shows up in English for "the UAE" and sometimes "the Sudan". But if you know that the definite article is "al" in Arabic you could correctly guess that "Algeria" is definite too. In Arabic it is الجزائر (al-jazāʾir).

Fun fact time! جزائر (jazāʾir) is the plural form of جزيرة (jazīra). It can mean "island" or "peninsula". The name of the media channel "al-jazīra" refers to the Arabian peninsula, while "al-jazāʾir" refers to four former islands that were incorporated into the mainland of the city of Algiers, and in Arabic, Algiers and Algeria are both al-jazāʾir.

[cjareck]

Extremely interesting! You are right, there is no infinitive in Arabic.

[Deinonysus]

Had a bit of a setback. We're going to be working with the kid home until the end of the year, which means I'll have less time to myself to study during the day, and I won't have a commute which means it will be harder to work in Pimsleur.

At first I cancelled my free trial of MSA, but delaying Pimsleur would hold up my language learning plans. It takes me around 6 weeks to get through a Pimsleur level, so the three levels of MSA and three levels of Levantine Arabic together would take me 36 weeks, or around eight months. I don't want to lose month just because I won't be driving much. I decided I can do Pimsleur at home while I do chores. That's what I did with Castilian Spanish and it worked out fine. I did lesson five for the third time yesterday and I think the material of finally sinking in. I started lesson six this morning as I unloaded the dishwasher.

I've been making good progress with Duolingo. Arabic just surpassed Hebrew as my third highest XP language. I'm nearly half-way through the course after about a month and a half (non-consecutively since I took a Norwegian break). I imagine I can finish the course in another month and a half to two months, assuming I don't get distracted again.

I just learned the word for (male) friend in Arabic in Duolongo, which is صديق (ṣadīq). That's funny because the exact same word in Hebrew (צדיק) means a righteous man. Maybe there was assumption somewhere in history that all your friends are righteous.

I haven't done much with Ahlan wa Sahlan since getting my Anki deck under control, but I'm hoping to start making progress every day and maybe finish the workbook and start working on the textbook by the new year.

I'm all caught up with Assimil. I didn't do a lesson last night, but I'm done reviewing and my next lesson will be a new one.

Progress-o-Meter™

عربي

: 5 / 90 Pimsleur MSA
: 98 / 230 Duolingo Arabic
: 19 / 77 Assimil L'arabe
: 2 / 6 Ahlan wa Sahlan Workbook

[Deinonysus]

Here's an Arabic fun fact for all you Spanish and Portuguese speakers out there. Arabic consonants are broken up into sun letters and moon letters. The sun letters are coronal, meaning that they "are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue" (according to Wikipedia). Examples of coronal consonants in English are t, d, th, s, z, ch, j, sh, l, and n. When the definite article "al" comes before a word that begins with a sun consonant, then the "l" is deleted and instead the first letter of the word is doubled.

That wasn't the fun fact, it was a prerequisite for the fun fact. The fun fact is, the Arabic word for rice is رز (ruz), and the Arabic r sound is coronal, so "the rice" is not "al-ruz" but "arruz". Sound familiar?

Pimsleur has been very challenging. I think I'll need to repeat today's lesson, and many lessons in the future. That's okay, I'm in no rush. I'd rather be thorough than quick. The other Pimsleur courses I've done where I had to repeat a lot of lessons were Japanese, Korean, Irish, and I think Hungarian. I did not need to repeat many lessons for Hebrew, Indonesian, or any of the Romance or Scandinavian languages. I don't remember repeating many lessons for Russian, which is weird because that's supposed to be a very hard language, but I didn't get very far in the course so I guess I didn't hit any tricky grammatical issues, and for whatever reason the vocabulary sank in okay, and it can't just be the Indo-European bonus because I had a harder time with Irish.

[ilmari]

Here's an Arabic fun fact for all you Spanish and Portuguese speakers out there. Arabic consonants are broken up into sun letters and moon letters. The sun letters are coronal, meaning that they "are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue" (according to Wikipedia). Examples of coronal consonants in English are t, d, th, s, z, ch, j, sh, l, and n. When the definite article "al" comes before a word that begins with a sun consonant, then the "l" is deleted and instead the first letter of the word is doubled.

That wasn't the fun fact, it was a prerequisite for the fun fact. The fun fact is, the Arabic word for rice is رز (ruz), and the Arabic r sound is coronal, so "the rice" is not "al-ruz" but "arruz". Sound familiar?

Actually, a number of words from Arabic origins have been integrated into other languages together with the "al" article, whether the article comes before a sun letter or a moon letter. In French, the most used ones may be "abricot, alcool, algèbre". You can find more here:
[url]https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Annexe:Mots_français_d’origine_arabe#A[/url]
Many of these words came to French via Spanish and Portuguese, not directly from Arabic.

[Deinonysus]

Here's an Arabic fun fact for all you Spanish and Portuguese speakers out there. Arabic consonants are broken up into sun letters and moon letters. The sun letters are coronal, meaning that they "are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue" (according to Wikipedia). Examples of coronal consonants in English are t, d, th, s, z, ch, j, sh, l, and n. When the definite article "al" comes before a word that begins with a sun consonant, then the "l" is deleted and instead the first letter of the word is doubled.

That wasn't the fun fact, it was a prerequisite for the fun fact. The fun fact is, the Arabic word for rice is رز (ruz), and the Arabic r sound is coronal, so "the rice" is not "al-ruz" but "arruz". Sound familiar?

Actually, a number of words from Arabic origins have been integrated into other languages together with the "al" article, whether the article comes before a sun letter or a moon letter. In French, the most used ones may be "abricot, alcool, algèbre". You can find more here:
[url]https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Annexe:Mots_français_d’origine_arabe#A[/url]
Many of these words came to French via Spanish and Portuguese, not directly from Arabic.

Thanks for the link! I think a lot of people who know that a lot of Arabic loanwords start with "al" might have missed "arroz" because the "al" is a bit hidden, but yes, I was aware of the general phenomenon as well.

[Deinonysus]

We've been watching the new Carmen Sandiego show with our daughter and we recently watched an episode that was set in the UAE, specifically in Dubai. I had to stop the episode and look up the Arabic pronunciation of Dubai. As it turns out, it's pronounced "Dubai".

That may seem a bit silly but I think I was right to look it up. The English spellings of Arabic place names don't always tell you exactly how they would be pronounced in Arabic. The name دبي (Dubai) would probably be spelled the same in English even if one or both of the vowels were long, or if the "d" were velarized, or if the "b" were doubled, so there could have been at least about a dozen Arabic spellings of pronunciations that the English spelling "Dubai" could represent.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are better examples of English spelling that doesn't tell you exactly how it's pronounced in Arabic. Riyadh has a long "a", and Abu Dhabi has a long "u" and "i". Also, the "dh" represents a hard but velarized d (ض) in "Riyadh", but a soft velarized d (ظ), which is pronounced as a velarized z in most dialects I think, in Abu Dhabi.

The kid finally took a nap that would have been long enough for me to do all the written exercises in chapter 3 of my workbook, but unfortunately I had to go out and take an unexpected trip to the grocery store, so I didn't get to do much. Oh well, at least I got to do Pimsleur in the car.

Progress-o-Meter™

عربي

: 7 / 90 Pimsleur MSA
: 105 / 230 Duolingo Arabic
: 20 / 77 Assimil L'arabe
: 2 / 6 Ahlan wa Sahlan Workbook

[Deinonysus]

Someone posted a picture of an Arabic copy of The Da Vinci Code on Reddit and it led me to the very cool etymology!

I was trying to read the words on the cover and I figured out that of course دان براون was Dan Brown and دافينتشي was Da Vinci, so by process of elimination شيفرة must be code. As it turns out, that word has a very interesting history!

I thought that شيفرة (shifra) sounded like the French word chiffre, meaning "digit", and as it turns out it also means "cipher" and was in fact the origin of the English word "cipher". And in fact it came from the Arabic word صفر (ṣifr) (meaning zero) in the first place! So it went from Arabic into French and back into Arabic!

~~~

I ran into something a bit odd with Pimsleur. Earlier in the thread, Cjareck mentioned that in a Polish Arabic learning resource, the final vowel of فضلك (faḍlika/i) is only dropped when addressing a man, but Pimsleur drops it for both genders.

Well, Pimsleur does the same thing with the word معك meaning "with you (singular)". They drop the final "a" when addressing a male (maʿak) but not the final "i" when addressing a female (maʿaki). So I have no idea why they do it for معك but not فضلك!

~~~

I'm finally half-way through the Ahlan wa Sahlan workbook! I may or may not be able to finish it before the new year. That would require me to go faster than a chapter a week. I'll see how it goes. I added the vocabulary for Chapter 5 to my Anki deck. It's much easier than the Chapter 4 vocabulary was. I already knew a few of the words from my other resources so I only have to learn the plurals.

Progress-o-Meter™

عربي

: 8 / 90 Pimsleur MSA
: 107 / 230 Duolingo Arabic
: 22 / 77 Assimil L'arabe
: 3 / 6 Ahlan wa Sahlan Workbook

[Deinonysus]

I keep getting confused between عند (used for possession) and هناك ("there is"), because in Hebrew the single word יש has both of these functions. But I think my experience with Hebrew is still doing more good than harm. For example, I saw the word ذهب ḏahab, meaning gold, and once I remembered that the Proto-Semitic consonants *ḏ and *z are merged in Hebrew I instantly memorized the Arabic word, because the Hebrew word for gold is זהב (zaháḇ).

An important thing to note is that Tiberian Hebrew does have a ḏ sound but that is the soft version of ד (daled) that comes after a vowel unless the consonant is doubled; this ḏ sound is completely unrelated to the Proto-Semitic consonant *ḏ that is preserved in Arabic. It is only a coincidence that they sound the same.

~~~

I'm making pretty quick progress on the Ahlan wa Sahlan workbook. I may finish it by the end of the year after all. There isn't much vocabulary in the last two chapters and I just put the twelve new vocabulary words for the last chapter into my Anki deck. The beginner textbook has 24 chapters. They seem a bit more involved than the Workbook chapters. I don't know how long it will take me to do each one but it would be cool if I could get through the beginner and intermediate textbooks in 2021. If I can get through a chapter a week and the intermediate textbook isn't much longer than the beginner textbook, that should be doable.

I ended up ordering a copy of Assimil's Perfectionnement Arabe. It was pretty expensive because I think the advanced books are all out of print except for Business English, but I think it will be worth it. At 70 lessons, it is almost as long as the beginner's course (which has only 77 lessons). I am too tired to get through an Assimil lesson some nights but I am still making steady progress. I'd say it takes me three real-time weeks to get through two weeks of Assimil lessons. I have just over 17 weeks of lessons left including the Advanced course; at my current pace that should take me about six months.

Pimsleur is going very slowly without a commute. I am only completing a couple of lessons a week at the moment. But some progress is better than none. Once I'm taking the kid to daycare again, I should be back to my usual rate of 4-5 lessons a week.

On the other hand, I'm half-way through the Duolingo course after less than two months of total work, so I should be done with it by the end of February.

I'm hoping that I can start working in DLI Basic Arabic once I'm done with Duolingo. It has over 50 hours of audio, which is more than the length of three levels of Pimsleur. However, Pimsleur audio is completely self-contained; 45 hours of Pimsleur Audio take 45 hours of work. But DLI is not self-contained. I will need to use Anki to memorize vocabulary and possibly dialogs as well. So those 50 hours of audio will likely correspond to 100 or more hours of total work.

I want to start working on Levantine Arabic as I finish my MSA resources. When I finish Assimil, I'm thinking of getting Speaking Arabic by J. Elihay after seeing a very positive thread about it here. I may see if I can get my hands on the French version instead since that was the author's native language. I have a thing for reading in the original when possible.

There is also a DLI Syrian Arabic course. It has just over 30 hours of audio, not quite as long as the Basic Arabic course but still substantial. I'm not sure if I'll get around to it, though, because I think I want to switch to Hebrew as soon as I'm done with all of my MSA courses. Speaking Arabic and Pimsleur Eastern Arabic can be done concurrently with my longer MSA courses because they will replace shorter courses.

Of course, all time estimates depend on me not getting distracted and switching to another language. My track record suggests that I'm not likely to avoid this, but we'll see how it goes.

Progress-o-Meter™

عربي

: 8 / 90 Pimsleur MSA
: 112 / 230 Duolingo Arabic
: 23 / 77 Assimil L'arabe
: 3 / 6 Ahlan wa Sahlan Workbook