Meandering Arabic journey

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ArabicAmateur
White Belt
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2022 3:03 pm
Languages: English (N)
Arabic - MSA (A1), Levantine (A0)
Dabbled in Dari, some schooling in German and Latin
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Meandering Arabic journey

Postby ArabicAmateur » Fri Nov 11, 2022 4:21 pm

Hi all,

Having lurked in these forums for a while, I thought this would be a good place to both hold myself accountable, log (hopeful) progress and get inspiration at the same time. I’ve already got a fair bit reading other, inevitably more successful, logs!

Starting point

Somewhere between an A0 and A1 in Arabic.

I started trying to learn MSA around a year ago, but due to career took a break after about four months. I’ve now been knuckling back down to it in the last month.

I’m keen to be able to get my MSA to a place I can read basic literature (more young adult than Arab poets), and subtitles to go alongside immersing in dialect content. Plus, I like the pan-Arab aspect of MSA.

I’m not an accomplished language learner and only have an AS level in Latin and GCSE German to my name, both many years ago.

Focus

While I’m continuing to focus on MSA, I plan to narrow this to reading (and eventually writing), with some listening; mostly through exposure to programmes that use it when immersing in a dialect.

I’ve bought J Elihay’s Complete Spoken Arabic (Eastern Arabic), as it seems to be one of the most comprehensive learning resources on Arabic dialect - and Levantine in particular.

I’ve finally clicked with a tutor on Italki, who teaches both MSA and Levantine and doesn’t just resort to running through dry tables of inflections with reams and reams of new vocab.

I may switch my focus to primarily Levantine, with some MSA instruction and reading / vocab study / grammar consolidation (likely Clozemaster and continuing Teach Yourself Arabic / Mastering Arabic), so that my I can focus on the speaking / listening side of Arabic learning.

I often struggle with feeling I’ve bitten off more than I can chew and that I’m getting nowhere. Hoping the Italki tutoring alongside more focused regime helps with this. I need to remind myself I’ve only put about 250 hours into the language, and that’s counting a lot of inefficiency (eg background or more passive listening, things like EarWorms MSA when commuting etc).
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ArabicAmateur
White Belt
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2022 3:03 pm
Languages: English (N)
Arabic - MSA (A1), Levantine (A0)
Dabbled in Dari, some schooling in German and Latin
x 36

Re: Meandering Arabic journey

Postby ArabicAmateur » Fri Nov 11, 2022 10:58 pm

I also have to be very conscious of keeping the focus. I think an Arabic dialect as a focus will help me stop looking at Dari / Farsi and thinking “what if…”
2 x

ArabicAmateur
White Belt
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2022 3:03 pm
Languages: English (N)
Arabic - MSA (A1), Levantine (A0)
Dabbled in Dari, some schooling in German and Latin
x 36

Re: Meandering Arabic journey

Postby ArabicAmateur » Sun Nov 13, 2022 5:38 pm

Is it normal to consider whether you’ll ever reach a level of fluency in a language, or is that something that’s more those studying the languages furthest from English?

Went through a couple of lessons focused on colloquial Persian in Chai and Conversations today. It helped get Persian out of my head a bit, realising it’s easier than Arabic but by no means easy.

Finding Anki reviews for MSA so-so. Still working through my self-made frequency list. I should take heart from the fact there are now many words I just know. The rest are 50-50 between those I can infer the meaning, those I get confused between similar words, and those that just don’t stick. Probably quite a strong overlap with the words I just don’t really get exposure to.

I’ve also been through more Clozemaster. While I certainly couldn’t structure the sentences myself in MSA, I am working out the correct term 8 or 9 times out of 10, and understanding more of the basic structure. The sentences in the most common 500 words seem a mix of very simple (a couple of words), generic but slightly longer sentences, and much more complex sentences. The latter definitely throw me a bit, and I try and narrow down my focus to recognising a few words, verb conjugations, possessive endings etc, rather than expecting to understand the whole sentence. The repeated exposure to the common words themselves are slowly helping them stick though.
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ArabicAmateur
White Belt
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2022 3:03 pm
Languages: English (N)
Arabic - MSA (A1), Levantine (A0)
Dabbled in Dari, some schooling in German and Latin
x 36

Re: Meandering Arabic journey

Postby ArabicAmateur » Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:43 pm

Building on my last post and Persian (specifically Dari) endlessly tempting me - the comparison I’ve taken to considering is learning a language as trying to run a marathon. Arabic (or other Cat V languages on the FSI scale) feels like trying to run an ultra marathon :lol:

I have, however, stayed away from any more forays into Persian or Dari, for now… though have got recommendations for a very good Dari instructor.

Today, I had another lesson with a tutor on Italki. I continue to rate her teaching style vs other MSA teachers I’ve tried. While she teaches Classical Arabic alongside MSA, she also teaches her dialect (Levantine), and her methods are just a bit more engaging than the usual “let’s apply case endings”, but without feeling - as I did in a university group class I took last year - that I’m not learning anything. I could undoubtedly learn what I’m paying to be taught in my own time and self-studying, as I’m not delving too heavily into accent correction or at the stage of moving past the MSA basics, but theres something about having to think about and deliver an answer that helps engage my brain more and make things easier to retain. Plus, it gives a focus for vocab lists to revise.

I also worked through (on my own) the first lesson of Conversational Eastern Arabic (Palestinian). I like the way it’s constructed and the transliteration definitely helps make the pronunciation easier, alongside the audio dialogues. The lesson took about half an hour, going fairly slowly to relisten / repeat the dialogue and going over the vocab a few times, together with answering the exercises. I think 30-60 minutes a lesson seems fair (as concepts get more complicated). With 15 lessons per unit and 4 units, anywhere between 30-60 hours to finish seems realistic.

I’m once again realising dialects are much more fluid, which makes sense given they’re designed to speak easily. It’s certainly easier than MSA with less tricky grammar, but the pronunciation of more difficult phrases and sentences (lots of ع words) are going to take a while to nail down.

A couple of criticisms remain. One, that the programme used CDs so I’m forced to use a CD player. Partly a fault of my own tools, but does make isolating a particular part of a dialogue harder vs a slider on a computer. However, in the long run, means I’ll get more input; so not necessarily a bad thing. While I completely get the transliteration as a means to reflect nuances in pronunciation, I don’t understand why no Arabic script was provided. It works fine for words that closely align between Levantine and MSA, and each letter is distinct enough to work it back to the equivalent term in Arabic script, and those terms aren’t necessarily going to be written given they’re Levantine anyway… but it would be nice to be able to quickly have an Arabic script Levantine word to cross-reference with MSA, rather than “decoding” it into Levantine in Arabic script first!
1 x

ArabicAmateur
White Belt
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2022 3:03 pm
Languages: English (N)
Arabic - MSA (A1), Levantine (A0)
Dabbled in Dari, some schooling in German and Latin
x 36

Re: Meandering Arabic journey

Postby ArabicAmateur » Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:34 pm

Another Italki MSA lesson, and a lesson (slightly frustratingly) cancelled. Definitely enjoying my teacher’s methods still.

Sentence structure and common vocabulary feels like it’s slowly beginning to click with Clozemaster. That’s not to say I can rattle off the example sentences with full comprehension for the most part, but more I’m identifying the most frequent words and making more sense of how the sentences fit together; even if I absolutely couldn’t produce that same sentence, and with vocab I don’t know frequently / choices of words I don’t fully understand in the wider sentence.

Doing the second Conversational Eastern Arabic lesson, had a bit of a wobble on my thoughts towards the resource and doing Levantine at this point. While transfer between MSA and dialect is ultimately almost preferable, I’m not sure I’ve cemented MSA quite enough to not be confusing myself slightly with Levantine. That said, I think a lot is the transliteration without Arabic script throwing me more than the actual structures and dialect specific vocab!
1 x

ArabicAmateur
White Belt
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2022 3:03 pm
Languages: English (N)
Arabic - MSA (A1), Levantine (A0)
Dabbled in Dari, some schooling in German and Latin
x 36

Re: Meandering Arabic journey

Postby ArabicAmateur » Sat Nov 19, 2022 7:59 pm

Enjoying Conversational Eastern Arabic more now I’ve found an accompanying Anki deck in Arabic script. While it’s a production deck, it works well.

Only on lesson three, but spending the time going through the dialogue repeatedly, shadowing, pre-empting the pronunciation before it’s said, and going through checking I understand the whole conversation. Imagine I’ll eventually need to be a bit less thorough, but it’s good for trying to cement the basics.

I’ve also had a think about my language goals and, while I would like to be able to read Arabic, I have a greater interest in being able to understand the spoken language, converse and understand native media. As such, going to put my focus onto Levantine. So, probably Conversational Eastern Arabic and Anki.

I’ll also look to move my Italki lessons to this. Deciding whether I continue this and Clozemaster to continue getting some exposure to written Arabic, but may just be splitting my time unnecessarily for now.

I’m hoping something like Mango could operate like Clozemaster for lots of exposure to sentences outside the transliteration of Elihay’s series; but may be too classroom structured.

I took another Dari lesson with the tutor I mentioned. He seemed decent enough, but it didn’t ignite any particular passion - so happy to put all my energy into Levantine for now
1 x

ArabicAmateur
White Belt
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2022 3:03 pm
Languages: English (N)
Arabic - MSA (A1), Levantine (A0)
Dabbled in Dari, some schooling in German and Latin
x 36

Re: Meandering Arabic journey

Postby ArabicAmateur » Mon Nov 21, 2022 3:42 am

Another positive day yesterday, continuing to review / look through a new lesson (Lesson 4) for Conversational Eastern Arabic.

I also moved lessons with my teacher over to Levantine, as planned. Enjoyed going through our materials, essentially doing a lot of comparing some of the basics we’d been through in MSA to (Jordanian / Palestinian) Levantine. Also started the dreaded verb conjugations… Levantine does love a ب!

I also decided to try a month’s subscription to the app Kaleela as it’s inexpensive (£10), and I like that it focuses (amongst other options) on Jordanian/Palestinian Levantine. Impressions so far are that it’s pretty surface level, and wouldn’t do much on its own; quite Duolingo in design and interface. That’s alright though, I only really wanted it for extra reinforcement, particularly when I’m commuting or at work or similar and can’t quite as easily use my Conversational Eastern Arabic textbook.

I’ve gone through Topics 2 and 3 (Basics 1 and 2) plus the initial Topic 1 (on Greetings) in little over an hour. There’s six lessons and a review per topic from what I’ve experienced so far. I don’t think it’s even taught more than 50 words yet, and there’s only 9 topics… though, in fairness, later topics (jobs, food, numbers) do have more lessons (11/11/16, respectively). I’ll keep updating, but it looks like a fairly gentle introduction to Jordanian/Palestinian specifically. Wouldn’t be one for a primary material, and nowhere near as extensive as Mango Languages Levantine offering, but the only app I’ve seen that focuses on southern Levantine specifically so far.

Edit - I should add, it’s also all in Arabic script, with decent voice recordings. As I’ve mentioned previously, as my textbook is solely transliteration I do like to keep some exposure to the written language, so I’ll be able to recognise / read things like informal communications or anything written specifically in dialect (admittedly not much), and more easily compare it back to MSA if needed. A nice to have rather than an essential, but useful all the same; especially alongside the Anki / Memrise decks that have transcribed Conversational Eastern Arabic into Arabic script.
1 x

ArabicAmateur
White Belt
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2022 3:03 pm
Languages: English (N)
Arabic - MSA (A1), Levantine (A0)
Dabbled in Dari, some schooling in German and Latin
x 36

Re: Meandering Arabic journey

Postby ArabicAmateur » Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:21 pm

I’ve also got myself a lifetime TalkinArabic subscription, seeing as there’s a Black Friday 50% off at the minute, and its Levantine is primarily Jordanian / Palestinian.

Plan for studying:

From now (A0/1 to A2/B1)

- Conversational Eastern Arabic as the bulk of structured learning (vocab, grammar, listening, pronunciation)
- Italki lessons for additional structure and to check pronunciation / practice speaking fairly early
- Anki (production) deck accompanying
- Finish off the Kaleela app

From A2/B1

- More of a focus on TalkinArabic (though will intersperse before to check understanding)
- Italki lessons more conversationally focused than structured learning

Looks a good plan - just need to advance through it!
1 x

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Amandine
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Location: Sydney, Australia
Languages: English (N), French (B1/B2), Russian (B1), Romanian (A1, casual playing on Duolingo), Yiddish (ditto)
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Re: Meandering Arabic journey

Postby Amandine » Tue Nov 22, 2022 12:54 am

Good luck with your journey! You may have already explored this but as I didn't see you mention it I just thought I would add, don't ignore YouTube as a tool. For a 'big' language like Arabic I'm sure there are a lot of accounts there putting out quality material. Of course its a procrastination trap too but if you can avoid that, there's a lot of valuable stuff there :)
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willcouchman
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Languages: Korean (Beginner), French (B1), Hindi (Beginner), Arabic (A1).
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Re: Meandering Arabic journey

Postby willcouchman » Tue Nov 22, 2022 12:15 pm

Best of luck on your journey!

I have learned Arabic (with some dawdling and distractions lol) almost exclusively through Elihay's course and I can speak a decent conversational Arabic - I was in Morocco last week and had to use Arabic a couple of times and was very pleased with how smoothly it flowed, despite the inevitable stumbles.

I would say that the transliteration is actually one of the strengths of the course - once I'd taken my time to get to grips with it. Written Arabic script cannot convey the nuances of pronunciation that the latin script can. I can't type it on this keyboard, but the books use two different fonts to transcribe the letter 'a' to show when to use a more "forward" 'a' as in 'bank', and a more "backward" 'a' as in 'father'. It's very hard to do that with Arabic script. So keep going - the course is hard work but it has opened up an entire language to me simply through listening and shadowing :)
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