It's been a while since I started this log, and since then I've learned a lot!
I've discovered (wow) that it's quite annoying to go back and edit this first log post every time I make an update, so for the newest statistics and updates, go to the end of the thread!
I'd also like to clarify how I'm studying these days, because it has changed a little bit since the beginning.
I read mostly books, and I read them mostly through LingQ. Their new Ipad app is great and it even is starting to work better with Arabic, even though Arabic basically is not a supported language. If you prefer reading through your browser, you need to kindly ask the support staff to make the "classic view" available for you. They've recently updated their software with a nice new reading-tool, but it shows all Arabic text backwards, so until they get that fixed (which is not a priority to them) you need to use the classic view). LingQ costs money.. I think it's worth it, but I've heard that "learning with texts" is a worthy, free alternative. I don't know how it fares with Arabic though. (There's also something out there called "ReadLang")
I've changed my log-title to "Arabic through semi-extensive reading", because I think that what I do is more a mix between extensive and intensive reading. I'm not yet at a level where I can read without aid from a dictionary, but LingQ's instant look-up feature (and the concept of creating yellow words) is really helpful, and makes for effortless reading.
I've recently started writing a blog too, where I speak about language learning. I'll throw the link in here in case someone would like to have a look:
Language learning blog
Among my recent posts are a Assimil Arabic review and many other things that you can find yourself if you want.
I'm speaking on Skype with a new Syrian friend about once a week and trying to meet up with another (Syrian) friend in my town about once or two times a week also. It's really helpful!
I'm also starting to make more of an effort in learning Algerian Arabic. It's quite difficult, because it's an oral language, and I'm really a reading-guy... I've discovered that Algerians make great music though, and I've been listening to a couple of songs, following along the lyrics. Check out this one: Learning Algerian Arabic with Cheb Mami - I'm also open for music suggestions in Derjda or Algerian Arabic!
--- and here follows the original post (where I'm going to stop updating the page-count)
Hi everyone!
After experiencing the joy of finally becoming fluent in French years ago, I decided that I'd try and learn Arabic next. This proved to be quite an undertaking and though I've worked hard and stubbornly on it, especially with a heavy focus on cloze - deletions in ANKI, I sort of stopped.
After almost a year, I picked up a bilingual book - almost by chance, and figured I'd try and eat my way through it. Extensive reading as a method is generally recommended for students who are already very proficient in the language, so that unknown words can be guessed from context - I'm very far for being at a point where I can understand the 98% that seems to be the key figure for making extensive reading work optimally. I'm probably closer to 40-60%, and this is only in terms of understanding words, not the syntax, case, conjugation, time and so on - so there's a long way to go, but what really seems to work for me, is to use the parallel text. I witch from English to Arabic sentence after sentence, and as it's getting easier, paragraph after paragraph. Much to my own surprise, reading remains enjoyable this way.
I think that is was the user EMK, who has shared his experience with extensive reading for learning French (will someone correct me if I'm wrong?) - In his post he mentioned that after 500 pages he could "somewhat" read French, after 2500 pages he read with basic fluency and after 10000 pages he hardly ever came upon unknowns. - I figured that I'd try and log my "page count" here, in order to compare. As of now (24th January 2016) I can see very significant progress after having read my first 4-500 pages, but I still couldn't get much out of the texts without their translations.
One of my biggest worries in regards to learning Arabic though extensive reading is the pronunciation. I'd love to do some "Listen - Reading" or to try and use shadowing in my studies, which are both methods that have helped me a lot with my French in the past, however, good audio is really hard to come by in Arabic, and if you do find something that seems good, it's often in some abridged form or without translations available which makes it all a bit more different. Although I'd love to have audio play a bigger part from the start, I feel that I'd have to wait a little while until my vocabulary gets rich enough to watch documentaries, listen to the radio and so forth.
The books I've read so far are:
1. John Grisham - The Pelican Brief - it has 91 pages of Arabic plus its corresponding English pages
I read this very slowly and without understanding much of the Arabic or in regards to pronunciation. The book has a lot of dialogue and is written (probably abridged) in a simple fashion.
2. Earnest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea - 80 pages of Arabic. I really enjoyed reading this and got through it quickly. My reading speed already got a little faster from the first book. The descriptions can be a little hard to follow but there's a lot of thoughts and a little dialogue thrown in which makes it easier.
3. Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland - 123 pages of Arabic. This was harder than the two preceding books, and I had some difficulties deciphering the font. In Arabic, the script is sometimes written in such a way that the letters come on top of each other instead of next to, but with all of the letter's "dots" in the same bundle (it's a little hard to explain, but imagine if you were to write a word with "ü" on top of "i" but with the "¨" and the dot on top of the "i" all in the same place. How would you know if the word starts with "ü" or "i"?)
4. Earnest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises - 163 pages of Arabic. I really liked to read "The Old Man and the Sea", so I decided to try reading some more Hemingway (I have more books in the mail) - This one was a little more difficult, though. The dialogue is fine, but the translation isn't always that precise. Sometimes it has omissions, but what is even stranger is that the Arabic version sometime seems to add to the English text. I think that it's safe to assume that the English version is not the original, but an abridged version, so perhaps the Arabic translation is based on something else. This does make it a little complicated sometimes, though.
The book had some passages a little heavy in description (in comparison with what else I've read) - and this is the only book so far where I've found myself skipping a page here and there. I think it would have been easier if the two texts were more alike.
5. Albert Camus - L'étranger - 180-ish pages of Arabic.
I've read this book 11 times now - I read it many times in French and Danish when I was learning French, and I absolutely loved it. Most books I wouldn't want to reread just after closing it, but this one is an exception. This one was not a bilingual book, so I had to juggle around with my kindle with the Arabic version in one hand and the French original in the other. Apart from a little shoulder pain, it worked out well, and the Arabic translation seems to be of very high quality. My reading speed has improved a lot, and I "feel like" my pronunciation is improving - At least the words seem to "flow" better now. I'm also starting to recognize a lot more of the Arabic words when I turn from the French version to the Arabic. I still wouldn't get much out of reading without the original text, but I think I've gained quite a bit of passive word recognition.
6. Harry Potter 1 264 pages of Arabic
7. The subtitles to the Disney film "Frozen" dubbed in Arabic (about 25 pages)
8. The Subtitles to the film "The Night of counting the years" (About 12 pages)
9. Harry Potter 2, 287 pages of Arabic (Not worth reading!)
10. Part of Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (100 pages in, will get back to it)
And on lingq, where I'm reading intensively, I've read 382.000 words, or 1528 pages of 250 words.
2191 pages of Arabic so far
In terms of audio input, I've watched the following:
Frozen dubbed in Arabic, 1,5 hours
The Flintstones episode 1, 25 minutes
2 hours of Arabic film so far
In the future I'm going to read some more Hemingways (some of the longer books), Animal Farm by George Orwell, and "Lord of the Flies". I'd really love to get into the Arabic authors, but they're not as easily available as the English classics - I did come upon some bilingual versions of some Arabic books on a French webshop, though, and I might pick that up later.
I'm looking forward to being able to read Arabic books by Arabic authors without having to rely on a translation!