Arabic through semi-extensive reading

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Zireael
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Languages: Native: Polish
C2: English
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Somewhere I don't know: German
Beginner: Arabic, Polish Sign Language
Wanderlusting: Japanese, Russian
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=815
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Re: Arabic through extensive reading (lower intermediate and forward)

Postby Zireael » Sat Apr 02, 2016 5:54 pm

Since you're using Lingq, maybe you could clear up some doubts I have?
Does it work for Arabic? All the reviews I can find state that the site has problems with it. However, they are quite old, it's possible they improved it. Also, how useful would Lingq be for a beginner (say, A2 level)?
And what are the limitations of the free account?
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thomas_dc
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Re: Arabic through extensive reading (lower intermediate and forward)

Postby thomas_dc » Sat Apr 02, 2016 8:17 pm

Zireael wrote:Since you're using Lingq, maybe you could clear up some doubts I have?
Does it work for Arabic? All the reviews I can find state that the site has problems with it. However, they are quite old, it's possible they improved it. Also, how useful would Lingq be for a beginner (say, A2 level)?
And what are the limitations of the free account?


It does work, but Arabic is one of their "Beta languages" - which means that it doesn't have a lot of pre-prepared lessons. I import texts into lingq and ignore all the other functionalities. I find that lingq is great as a text reading tool and that all the other things are just stuff that the creators have added to make it suit more people's learning styles... You even have a furry pink "avatar" that you can buy clothing and merchandise for for points that you earn through using the site.. I find it ridiculous but it doesn't matter.
The main problem with using Lingq for Arabic would probably be that google translate and other online dictionaries are mediocre at best, and lingq uses these dictionaries for looking up words. This isn't lingq's fault, but a lot of times, a word is mistranslated or otherwise just translated as gibberish.. It can help to manually seek out the words root and look that up individually.

Otherwise I don't have any problems with it.

I'm using the paid version - with the free version you're limited to creating only a few hundred "lingqs" (words that you don't know but that you're gradually recognizing more and more". I have some 15.000 right now, so the free version doesn't take you that far. But there's another piece of software called "learning with texts" out there and that one is free - I think it's doing something similar, so you might want to check that one out.
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Marah
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Studying (B1 and lower): Russian, Mandarin, Polish, Czech , MS Arabic, Moroccan and Egyptian Arabic

Postponed: Japanese, Greek, Indonesian, Hindi, Turkish, Croatian
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Re: Arabic through extensive reading (lower intermediate and forward)

Postby Marah » Sat Apr 02, 2016 9:04 pm

Yep, Learning With Text does that and you get to pick your dictionaries so you're not stuck with Google Translate!
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thomas_dc
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Re: Arabic through extensive reading (lower intermediate and forward)

Postby thomas_dc » Mon Apr 04, 2016 2:47 pm

I just calculated that I understand 87% of the Arabic subtitles of Lord Of the Rings. Subtitles are obviously only dialogue, but it still seems like a quite significant improvement from one month back when I calculated roughly 65-70 in the book "Angles and demons"

A novel is a lot more complicated than subtitles... But still! I also seem to consolidate my "known" vocabulary more and more which is great.

Anyway - this was just a quick update for you guys.. I'm still reading intensively with lingq by the way.
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thomas_dc
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Re: Arabic through extensive reading (lower intermediate and forward)

Postby thomas_dc » Sun May 08, 2016 9:30 am

It's been over a month since my last update in here - I'm still reading with lingq, and am in for the long haul, so there's not much to report progress-wise. I've now read 856 pages through LingQ, making my total page count 2191. Lingq tells me that I know 17750 words, and even though this seems like a lot, it still only covers around 70-75% of a normal novel. (I'm reading the science fiction novel "little brother" by Cory Doctorow right now) - And most of this vocabulary is still very fuzzy and approximate. I feel that I'm making a lot of progress though, and gradually get more out of the texts I read.

I don't listen to Arabic at all. I know that I should, but it's just so hard to keep focused when you don't understand anything, so I'm continuing a little while with learning vocabulary before starting listening to some easy books.

I've been speaking with some Arabs very loosely lately. I really can't communicate much on Arabic, but understand slightly more than I am able to express. I get some speaking opportunities though some voluntary work with the local refugee center, and this is really recommendable for everyone. I feel like I'm personally getting a lot out of it on a personal level, and linguistically it's great to get some hands on experience. Many of the refugees only speak Arabic, so I'm sort of forced to try and communicate which is a great help. I also get to use my French with a man from Congo, and I think he's getting a lot out of it too, because nobody else speaks French here.
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thomas_dc
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Re: Arabic through extensive reading (lower intermediate and forward)

Postby thomas_dc » Sun Sep 04, 2016 1:57 pm

It's been a while since my last update, and I'm moving steadily forward. I'm still studying texts with LingQ without much (or any, really) audio input. I hope to begin listening and reading to a few novels in parallel once I feel that I have a vocabulary sufficient for it. It might be coming up.

LingQ says that I know 27325 words and that I've read a total of 382073 words which is around 1900 pages of 200 words each.
I've found a great source of "easy to read classics" in Arabic here: http://www.hindawi.org/books/series/35370515/ and have taken great pleasure in reading several of the books on the list. I bet they're heavily abridged and quite different from the original versions, but I'm not at a point in my studies where it feels dumbed down in any way. In fact, it's starting to get enjoyable to read now - I've got an average comprehension of around 85% with these easy books, and when using the LingQ reader with it's instant lookup features, I do understand almost everything.

My total page-count is now 3200 In Arabic. I'm starting to read slightly quicker now, but except for the weekends, I rarely surpass 10 pages in a day which means that it'll be a while before I reach the magic 10.000.
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thomas_dc
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Re: Arabic through extensive reading (lower intermediate and forward)

Postby thomas_dc » Sat Jan 14, 2017 8:01 pm

I'm still studying, friends!

Now, my stats at LingQ are as follows:
Total words read: 640.000 (or 2560 pages of 250 words)
Total known words 36.000

It's going forward! I still have a long way to go, but my reading is a little faster now, which is also aided by LingQ's releasing their new Ipad app which is much much better than the earlier version.
I've logged my lingq statistics in here since the beginning, so it might be interesting to try and make a graph of some of the info, in order to get an idea of where things are going.
My total page-count in Arabic should be around 3860 - I'm getting closer to the half-way mark now, and I do feel that I've progressed quite a bit since my last update. I've read a few Agatha Christie books where I didn't understand the plot perfectly. I suppose that "whodunnit's" are a little complicated when you don't really master the language. I did enjoy the book called "and then there were none" which is much simpler to understand than the others. And it's a great book too.
Today, I started working om some more difficult material from the Sciware podcast - it's one of the extremely rare Arabic podcasts that has transcripts available for all of its audio! The subject matter is very interesting and the podcaster Mohammed Qassem has a nice and friendly voice. Even though it's more difficult than other things I'm studying, I understand it very well.

I'm trying to compile a list of Arabic self study resources, and if someone has some input or some suggestions to material I should add, I'd be happy to hear them: List of Arabic study resources

I also have written a short article meant as a guide to new students of Arabic. It's how I would go about studying Arabic if I were to start over, so it might not fit everybody's style, but I'd love to hear people's opinions: how to learn Arabic

I'll see you guys soon!
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Zireael
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Languages: Native: Polish
C2: English
B2: Spanish
Somewhere I don't know: German
Beginner: Arabic, Polish Sign Language
Wanderlusting: Japanese, Russian
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=815
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Re: Arabic through extensive reading (lower intermediate and forward)

Postby Zireael » Fri Feb 10, 2017 3:07 pm

Why don't you have Aratools listed under dictionaries in the list? It's the best AR-EN dictionary I've ever found...
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thomas_dc
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Re: Arabic through extensive reading (lower intermediate and forward)

Postby thomas_dc » Fri Feb 10, 2017 3:36 pm

Zireael wrote:Why don't you have Aratools listed under dictionaries in the list? It's the best AR-EN dictionary I've ever found...


well I don't really use dictionaries, other than google translate to be honest! I'll take a look though!
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Doitsujin
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Re: Arabic through extensive reading (lower intermediate and forward)

Postby Doitsujin » Fri Feb 10, 2017 7:08 pm

thomas_dc wrote:
Zireael wrote:Why don't you have Aratools listed under dictionaries in the list? It's the best AR-EN dictionary I've ever found...
IMHO, ElixirFM Arabic, which is based on the same dataset, is much more powerful.
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