Studying the Islamicate Languages in 2023 (Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu)

[Saher]

Hi! I'm new to this forum. I was searching the Internet on how I can study Arabic, Persian and Urdu and came across this post of yours.

I am a new beginner in learning languages. I was born and raised in Canada, so I am fluent in English and intermediate in French. My native tongue is Urdu but I do not know how to read/ write it, and can understand the basics. I can read Arabic words without knowing their meanings as many non-arabic Muslims can.

What would you recommend as a resource to learn these three languages on my own? I am interested in Arabic Urdu and farsi poetry and that is my main reason for learning these languages.

It seems like you're an expert on learning languages and specifically the three I'm interested in. This is my project for 2024 and I'd appreciate any advice you have to give. I am seeing Assimil mentioned often. Is this what you'd recommend ?

Thank you in advance!

I finished Le Grec Ancien L10, Le Persan Sans Peine L73 and L74 and Le Latin Sans Peine L40.

2023 Anki Stats:

Focus language:

MSA: 20,058 reviews, 95.1% cards mature
Levantine Arabic: 4306 Reviews, 98.7% cards mature
Arabic total: 24,364

Secondary languages with a decent amount of time spent adding new cards:

Hindi and Urdu: 7601 reviews, 99.2% mature
Japanese, 6210 reviews, 90.9% mature
Persian: 6122 reviews, 97.1% mature
Turkish and Ottoman： 5746 reviews, 96.5% mature

Either abandoned languages, stubbornly sticking around where I do a few reviews a day, or mature ones that don't need much upkeep.

French: 2719 reviews, 99.8% mature
German: 1852 reviews, 98.1% mature
Latin: 1662 reviews: 98.1% mature
Akkadian: 1526 reviews, 99.4% mature
Russian: 1177 reviews, 99.6% mature
Spanish： 1033 reviews, 100% mature
Ancient Greek: 774 reviews, 74.72% mature
Hebrew: 495 reviews, 98.2% mature
Italian: 273 reviews, 100% mature


Total: 62,686 reviews, 172 reviews a day, 26 new cards added a day

No stats for Chinese, which is mostly in Pleco, but it would be about 5-15 minutes a day with mostly individual vocabulary cards (I didn't know how to properly make cards back then). I'm slowly trying to transition to Anki for Chinese and putting in some new sentence cards.

These stats don't include Clozemaster which averages 15-20 minutes a day. I get a decent amount of practice with German and the romance languages in Clozemaster, and minor practice for Russian, Japanese, Chinese Arabic, and Hindi. There's also Duolingo where I spend approximately 5 minutes a day learning Turkish (a single lesson).

These stats surprised me somewhat. I knew that Arabic would be ahead but didn't know it would be so far ahead, and I thought I'd get more practice for Turkish than I did. I also thought I did more Latin reviews than I actually did.

Originally, I was planning on dropping a language going into 2024, but I just can't decide what to drop. I was thinking Latin, Levantine Arabic, and Turkish, but I still have some interest for Latin and it's an important language for Western civilization. As for Turkish, it's not a very good fit right now for various reasons, but I'm probably going to abandon the Ottoman book for now (focus on making progress in Assimil), and gradually reduce study time as cards mature. I'm still interested in Turkish, but it's going to have to be on the back-burner for now. We'll see if I can minimally study it without regressing.

Instead of making concrete plans for 2024, I'm just going to adjust the proportion of time I spend on each. I can feel Japanese and Persian progressing nicely and will be increasing the time I spend on those daily. I'm close to being able to learn solely with readers and +1 sentences in the wild. For Japanese, I'm going to go through Tobira and Mangajin issues, where there are a ton of low-hanging +1 sentences that also help me understand colloquial Japanese. I'll also up my podcast listening.

For Persian, I'm going to try to finish the Assimil book and perhaps review Thackston's Classical Persion section of "An Introduction to Persian". After Assimil, I was thinking of trodding through another beginner textbook or beginner grammar, but I don't know if it's necessary and I feel like I'll be able to tackle either a reader aimed at learners, or ideally, bilingual classical poetry. I'm afraid I'll get burned out if, right after finishing Assimil, I go back to doing even more tedious beginner sentences and reviewing grammar points I already know. So for Persian I'm going to try something different and try to jump straight into the deep end, unless I get overwhelmed and lost. I know Professor Arguelles likes using multiple beginner resources, but I'm beginning to second-guess that approach for myself since I intensively study with Anki and it gets repetitive, not to mention I run the risk of never getting out of the textbook phase.

I haven't forgotten about Arabic! I'm going to continue to go through the advanced Assimil course and the grammar book. Arabic will likely still take up the bulk of my study time, but when I need a break, I have secondary languages to take refuge in. Generally, once reviews for Arabic start exceeding 25-30 minutes a day, I need a break and let the material sink in. For Arabic, unlike for Japanese and Persian, I feel like it's going to be a lot longer until I can escape textbooks. I can't overstate just how much harder it is. At the very least, I'll be doing more advanced and interesting sentences now that my level is higher instead of "He had breakfast in his office"

As for my other languages, they will be on various degrees of low-effort maintenance. I'll sneak in some Ancient Greek, Hindi, and Latin lessons when I can, but it won't be a priority. Like Persian and Japanese, Hindi is also close to being able to use readers, and I'm almost done with the Assimil book, but there are only so many languages I can focus on at one time. Languages that I haven't listed will essentially be doing the bare minimum (Clozemaster and Anki reviews). For Hindi, I want to maintain my typing/reading skills in Devanagari, and keep in a good spot if I want to focus seriously on it someday or learn Sanskrit. For Urdu, there is potentially a lot I can read but learning Persian would help with the stuff I'm most interested in reading anyway.

I want to get more into the Sinosphere and give my Chinese more attention, but looking at my above schedule, it's just not going to fit in. I will be gradually converting Pleco cards to Anki cards, and perhaps do some more casual reading but not intensive study of a textbook unless my priorities change. Chinese isn't going anywhere and I get passive practice daily with Kanji and talking to my family.

My plans are always subject to change, but this is a summary of how I'm feeling right now. Essentially, my pipe dream is to someday have good knowledge of at least two Islamic languages (Arabic and Persian), two Sinosphere languages (Chinese and Japanese) and knowledge of the classical languages of the western tradition (Greek and Latin). The classical languages aren't a priority right now but I'm chipping away at the basics when I can. I've learned that I enjoy languages with a long, continuous written history, and besides Japanese, which was modernized relatively recently, they all fit that bill.

Given the above description, Turkish is in a bit of an awkward spot, since it's in a completely unrelated language family, had a drastic reform recently, and the Ottoman literature I'm most interested in requires good Arabic and Persian knowledge anyway. As for Hindustani, it actually synergizes nicely as another Indo-European language relatively close to Persian but I've chosen to focus on Arabic and Persian since they are just so much more influential with deeper, longer traditions.

We'll see where 2024 takes me! I'll likely make a new thread even though my focus really won't be changing that much. I need to let this information sink in first as I continually contemplate these stats and road ahead.

[bolaobo]

Hi! I'm new to this forum. I was searching the Internet on how I can study Arabic, Persian and Urdu and came across this post of yours.

I am a new beginner in learning languages. I was born and raised in Canada, so I am fluent in English and intermediate in French. My native tongue is Urdu but I do not know how to read/ write it, and can understand the basics. I can read Arabic words without knowing their meanings as many non-arabic Muslims can.

What would you recommend as a resource to learn these three languages on my own? I am interested in Arabic Urdu and farsi poetry and that is my main reason for learning these languages.

It seems like you're an expert on learning languages and specifically the three I'm interested in. This is my project for 2024 and I'd appreciate any advice you have to give. I am seeing Assimil mentioned often. Is this what you'd recommend ?

Thank you in advance!

Welcome to the forum and thank you for reading my log!

Yes, I'm an Assimil fanboy, so I'll recommend that before other resources almost always. For me, it just works.

For Urdu, your first and most important goal is to get used to the script. It can take some getting used to it since it's written in a "cursive" font. I recommend Read and Write Urdu Script: A Teach Yourself Guide by Richard Delacy. Once you're comfortable with the script, it really depends on your level for the language. "Teach Yourself Urdu" is decent, but might be too easy for you. If it's too easy, there are links and references to tons of resources here that I would recommend.

For Persian, the only textbook I've used is Le Persan by Assimil, and I highly recommend it as long as your French is up-to-par. It offers a great introduction to the language and teaches most of the grammar in a gentle, progressive way. If you need more grammar instruction, there's Wheeler Thackston's An Introduction to Persian but honestly, Persian grammar isn't that hard and you'll likely have more fun with Assimil (and improve your listening/French at the same time).

Arabic is....another matter. If you're mainly interested in Classical Arabic and poetry, Assimil might not be the best fit for you because you also learn a lot of colloquial speech. I highly recommend "A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language" by J.A. Haywood and H. M. Nahmad to get a solid base in grammar and build up a vocabulary base. Arabic is a very grammar-heavy language and you can't really avoid it if you want to eventually read poetry and advanced Classical. There is no audio for this textbook, unfortunately. The Assimil course is very good as long as you're aware that the focus is on modern, spoken Arabic although it touches on more literary constructions. Assimil is a good way to gradually be introduced to the beast that is Arabic grammar if you're overwhelmed by boring explanations and conjugation tables.

In addition to the above, I haven't used it (I've skimmed through it), but since you are a Muslim, if one of your main goals is understanding the Qur'an, you would be well-served with Wheeler Thackston's An Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic, although it is rather dry and uses a decent amount of linguistic lingo. You might want to start off with just this book and add the above grammar book only if you need additional practice since it might be redundant to do both at same time. This book offers a comprehensive but compact introduction to the language and by the end you're reading Hadiths and excerpts from the Qur'an.

[bolaobo]

I finished Le Grec Ancien L11 and L12, Le Persan Sans Peine L75-L79, Tobira Chapter 1, Mangajin Issue #1, Perfectionnement Arabe L6 and L7, Le Hindi L43, and Le Latin L41

I'm happy to see that the forums are back up! I will be making another topic for 2024, but I wanted to post my usual progress update in this thread, instead of starting the new one with it.

I've mostly decided on a focus for 2024. I still have my hesitations, but it's over halfway through January so I can't dilly-dally anymore.

These past few weeks have mostly been Arabic, Persian, and Japanese, with a sprinkling of Ancient Greek and other languages when I have the time. Arabic has been more review than new material due to an enormous amount of daily reviews but the Arabic vocabulary has been coming in handy for knocking out Persian lessons quickly (I recognize a good number of words). As usual, I've been enjoying everything I've learning but the lion's share of the work is going towards Arabic, Persian, and Japanese, and (spoiler alert!) this will continue the rest of 2024. I'm still into the Islamicate languages, but I've decided to limit them to mostly Arabic and Persian and to diversify a bit to give some other languages some needed attention.

To give a final summary, in 2023 and up until now, I finished the following Assimil lessons. Some of them are laughably slow, but, I've been happy with my slow and steady strategy so far as long as I don't forget material. My learning strategy is to maintain everything in Anki, so my progress gradually gets slower as I advance in the textbook and the backlog increases but it eventually levels out and I can push harder again, like I did at the end of the year for Japanese and Arabic.

Looking back at this and trying to be objective, I've been able to at least maintain everything, with some languages like Latin getting very little but it was enough to stay fresh in my brain and prepare it for the future.

There is clear progress seen, but some of it is too slow if I ever want to enjoy native material sometime within the next 10 years. To make some adjustments, I'm going to be giving much less time to Turkish since it needs less time to maintain now and mostly abandoning Levantine Arabic until my MSA is better and I'm juggling fewer textbooks. For Latin, I want to do occasional lesson but I have no delusion about finishing the textbook any time soon nor do I have a huge amount of motivation for it.

Should I forget about Ancient Greek? Yeah, probably, but my stubborn self is not willing to give it up, and I'd probably give up Latin before it. We'll see what happens.

Well, here are the stats.

Latin: L39 to L41
Turkish: L4-L18
Japanese: L93 to L99 (Finish)
Arabic: L47 to L77 (Finish)
Perfectionnement Arabic: L1 to L7
Persian: L53 to L79
Ancient Greek: L1 to L12
Hindi: L40 to L43

Non-Assimil:

Levantine Arabic: L16 to L24
Arabic Grammar: L14 to L28