A language learners’ forum

JohannaNYC wrote:Hi, is it too late to join?

I'm actively studying Egyptian Arabic and would like to have a place to share difficulties, triumphs, book recommendations, etc with other learners. I have access to native speakers both on Skype and "real life" friends, but I don't think they understand the struggle, they keep on telling me that I can be fluent in Arabic in 6 months.

6 months?!? Definitely not realistic!

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to pop in for an update. I'm going strong in Hebrew, both ancient and modern, progressing nicely in my textbook and with pimsleur. Still a long way to go.

I've also started playing with (modern) Chaldean, with an eye toward Syriac and ancient Aramaic. But I've only done done unit of the book so far.

Arabic is extremely frustrating, I can't seem to wrap my head around the script, and as a result, I'm having trouble sustaining any progress. Sigh.

Systematiker wrote:Hey everyone,

Just wanted to pop in for an update. I'm going strong in Hebrew, both ancient and modern, progressing nicely in my textbook and with pimsleur. Still a long way to go.

I've also started playing with (modern) Chaldean, with an eye toward Syriac and ancient Aramaic. But I've only done done unit of the book so far.

Arabic is extremely frustrating, I can't seem to wrap my head around the script, and as a result, I'm having trouble sustaining any progress. Sigh.

What seems to be the problem? What resources are you using for learning the script?

NIKOLIĆ wrote:

Systematiker wrote:Hey everyone,

Just wanted to pop in for an update. I'm going strong in Hebrew, both ancient and modern, progressing nicely in my textbook and with pimsleur. Still a long way to go.

I've also started playing with (modern) Chaldean, with an eye toward Syriac and ancient Aramaic. But I've only done done unit of the book so far.

Arabic is extremely frustrating, I can't seem to wrap my head around the script, and as a result, I'm having trouble sustaining any progress. Sigh.

What seems to be the problem? What resources are you using for learning the script?

Part of the problem is that it has been a while since I learned a new script, and probably it's always been less instant than I'd like it to be. I mean, I can do five phonetic scripts, so it's not that I'm struggling with that.

For example, the Syriac script is clicking a lot better, im not really having any trouble remembering that without drills or anything (but, then, it's more similar to Hebrew).

Part of it, I think, is the variations in medial and final forms.

I have tried just a simple list (which worked in other languages) and a couple of memrise courses (that was bad. Yes, spell the name of the letter in Latin script in response to the audio...).

I switched today to L'arabe litteraire facil which makes more sense to me. There's a slight display problem with the font for some of the attached medial and final forms, though, so it's far from perfect. I th ok what works for me about it is the repetition of each letter with the different vowels, using several example words per vowel. That makes things make more sense to me (even though it's counterintuitive given how I learned Hebrew consonants and vowels / am learning Syriac consonants and vowels).

Probably, I'm just cranky because it's not as easy as I want it to be.

Systematiker wrote:Part of the problem is that it has been a while since I learned a new script, and probably it's always been less instant than I'd like it to be. I mean, I can do five phonetic scripts, so it's not that I'm struggling with that.

For example, the Syriac script is clicking a lot better, im not really having any trouble remembering that without drills or anything (but, then, it's more similar to Hebrew).

Part of it, I think, is the variations in medial and final forms.

I have tried just a simple list (which worked in other languages) and a couple of memrise courses (that was bad. Yes, spell the name of the letter in Latin script in response to the audio...).

I switched today to L'arabe litteraire facil which makes more sense to me. There's a slight display problem with the font for some of the attached medial and final forms, though, so it's far from perfect. I th ok what works for me about it is the repetition of each letter with the different vowels, using several example words per vowel. That makes things make more sense to me (even though it's counterintuitive given how I learned Hebrew consonants and vowels / am learning Syriac consonants and vowels).

Probably, I'm just cranky because it's not as easy as I want it to be.

I started writing a lengthy post on how I would learn it if I had to do it all over again, but then I realized that not a lot of people like unsolicited advice. I really don't know how you're gonna do it without my help. I mean, it's not like you learned how to speak more that 4 languages fluently and can write in several non Latin scripts.

However, I strongly recommend using this book: Mastering Arabic Script: A Guide to Handwriting. The beautiful thing about it is that you can use it to learn both the "naskh (printed forms)" and "ruq3a (handwritten)" if you chose to do so. If you really want to master reading and writing the "ruq3a" script, then this book is a must-have: Writing Arabic: A Practical Introduction to Ruq'ah Script.

Here's an article on the "ruq3a" script:
3 tips for learning the important skill of reading hand written Arabic

NIKOLIĆ wrote:

Systematiker wrote:Part of the problem is that it has been a while since I learned a new script, and probably it's always been less instant than I'd like it to be. I mean, I can do five phonetic scripts, so it's not that I'm struggling with that.

For example, the Syriac script is clicking a lot better, im not really having any trouble remembering that without drills or anything (but, then, it's more similar to Hebrew).

Part of it, I think, is the variations in medial and final forms.

I have tried just a simple list (which worked in other languages) and a couple of memrise courses (that was bad. Yes, spell the name of the letter in Latin script in response to the audio...).

I switched today to L'arabe litteraire facil which makes more sense to me. There's a slight display problem with the font for some of the attached medial and final forms, though, so it's far from perfect. I th ok what works for me about it is the repetition of each letter with the different vowels, using several example words per vowel. That makes things make more sense to me (even though it's counterintuitive given how I learned Hebrew consonants and vowels / am learning Syriac consonants and vowels).

Probably, I'm just cranky because it's not as easy as I want it to be.

I started writing a lengthy post on how I would learn it if I had to do it all over again, but then I realized that not a lot of people like unsolicited advice. I really don't know how you're gonna do it without my help. I mean, it's not like you learned how to speak more that 4 languages fluently and can write in several non Latin scripts.

However, I strongly recommend using this book: Mastering Arabic Script: A Guide to Handwriting. The beautiful thing about it is that you can use it to learn both the "naskh (printed forms)" and "ruq3a (handwritten)" if you chose to do so. If you really want to master reading and writing the "ruq3a" script, than this book is a must-have: Writing Arabic: A Practical Introduction to Ruq'ah Script.

Here's an article on the "ruq3a" script:
3 tips for learning the important skill of reading hand written Arabic

I'm actually totally up for any advice you'd care to give!

Something that helped a lot today was finding a comparative chart of Imperial Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic (and a few more, it's the Wikipedia article on the Aramaic alphabet) - a lot of it just clicked for me. I also picked up a copy of a book called "Alif Baa" from the public library today (it was the only thing on Arabic they have, it's a small town).

I'll look into your recommendations - I'm hesitant to spend money on it, as I'm not even sure how far I'll go with the language, but I can't seem to leave it alone, so...

As for Arabic, I've decided to combine studying from the textbook with native materials and have abandoned the flaschards I was using. I've been making much more progress that way. When I try to "finish" chapters in the textbook I just end up procrastinating and getting frustrated. One resource I've been using is this video, from a channel Nikolić clued me onto:



It's good because it's a topic that I'm interested in and has a full transcription and translation along with it. It's also quite long. That's very rare for vernacular Arabic resources.

Modern Hebrew's been going good. What's great is that there's lots of media in Hebrew with subtitles in Hebrew, which I've never seen for any other language. I've been rewatching the cartoon series the Legend of Korra, in the first episode I had to look up a huge amount of words but now I'm really comfortable with it. Beyond that I listen to songs and try to sing along and look up words I don't understand. I've stopped reading the news as I don't think it makes sense to focus on that at this point.

How's everyone else?

I am not American, but I can relate to this:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/miriamberger/3 ... xiMZb3kl4R

Hey everyone! I'm studying Arabic too!
I'm working on fusha, and am hoping to learn Algerian Derdja at some point.
Most of my daily study time is spent on LingQ, where (apparently) I know 36000 words. I'm still far away from being a fluent reader, though!
During the workday I listen passively to Arabic podcasts - I don't understand much, but I do recognize words and patterns here and there.

I have a log on here too: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2020
There I try to keep track of my progress in reading Arabic. My goal is to read 10.000 pages, to copy EMK's adventures with French. Presently I'm at some 3800 pages. It might be a while before I get there!

Good luck everyone, and nice to see some fellow Arabic students

Systematiker wrote:

NIKOLIĆ wrote:

Systematiker wrote:Part of the problem is that it has been a while since I learned a new script, and probably it's always been less instant than I'd like it to be. I mean, I can do five phonetic scripts, so it's not that I'm struggling with that.

For example, the Syriac script is clicking a lot better, im not really having any trouble remembering that without drills or anything (but, then, it's more similar to Hebrew).

Part of it, I think, is the variations in medial and final forms.

I have tried just a simple list (which worked in other languages) and a couple of memrise courses (that was bad. Yes, spell the name of the letter in Latin script in response to the audio...).

I switched today to L'arabe litteraire facil which makes more sense to me. There's a slight display problem with the font for some of the attached medial and final forms, though, so it's far from perfect. I th ok what works for me about it is the repetition of each letter with the different vowels, using several example words per vowel. That makes things make more sense to me (even though it's counterintuitive given how I learned Hebrew consonants and vowels / am learning Syriac consonants and vowels).

Probably, I'm just cranky because it's not as easy as I want it to be.

I started writing a lengthy post on how I would learn it if I had to do it all over again, but then I realized that not a lot of people like unsolicited advice. I really don't know how you're gonna do it without my help. I mean, it's not like you learned how to speak more that 4 languages fluently and can write in several non Latin scripts.

However, I strongly recommend using this book: Mastering Arabic Script: A Guide to Handwriting. The beautiful thing about it is that you can use it to learn both the "naskh (printed forms)" and "ruq3a (handwritten)" if you chose to do so. If you really want to master reading and writing the "ruq3a" script, than this book is a must-have: Writing Arabic: A Practical Introduction to Ruq'ah Script.

Here's an article on the "ruq3a" script:
3 tips for learning the important skill of reading hand written Arabic

I'm actually totally up for any advice you'd care to give!

Something that helped a lot today was finding a comparative chart of Imperial Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic (and a few more, it's the Wikipedia article on the Aramaic alphabet) - a lot of it just clicked for me. I also picked up a copy of a book called "Alif Baa" from the public library today (it was the only thing on Arabic they have, it's a small town).

I'll look into your recommendations - I'm hesitant to spend money on it, as I'm not even sure how far I'll go with the language, but I can't seem to leave it alone, so...

If you are looking for tools for Aramaic and Syriac script, I wrote apps for these - available from http://alphabetsnow.zyntx.com or directly from the App store. (see my signature...)(ps. these are for the iPad / iPhone and, yes, commercial - at $1 per app.)

As to myself, still slowly working my way through Hebrew. Much more time has been focused on app development and language stuff has suffered a little.