How to learn Arabic Introduction PEOPLE learn Arabic for a variety of reasons: for work, for travel, for religious purposes, because of marriage or friendship with an Arab, or simply as a hobby. The motivation to some extent determines the most appropriate learning method. Whatever your motive, we suggest you try to learn a little Arabic at home before committing yourself to more serious (and possibly expensive) study of it. At the very least, this will give you an idea of what’s involved and give you extra confidence during the early stages of any course you may take later. The first thing to decide is whether you want to learn standard/classical Arabic or a colloquial dialect. Unless your interest is confined to one particular country, the safest option is to learn a version of the classical language known as Modern Standard Arabic. This is what is used in books, newspapers, radio and television news programmes, political speeches, etc. Using standard Arabic in everyday conversation sounds a bit formal to Arab ears, but at least you can be sure of being understood by educated Arabs anywhere in the Middle East. It may be more difficult to understand what they say to you, unless they make the effort to speak more formally than usual. Having learnt some standard Arabic, however, it is relatively easy to adapt to a local dialect later. Among the dialects, Egyptian and Levantine (spoken by Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians and Palestinians) are the most widely understood outside their specific area. Colloquial Moroccan, on the other hand, is of little use outside the Maghreb. If you are planning to learn Arabic because of an interest in Islam, standard Arabic is preferable to a colloquial dialect. But standard Arabic, on its own, is unlikely to meet all your needs. A specific course in Qur’anic Arabic would be more suitable, perhaps in conjunction with standard Arabic. Learning the alphabet IT IS well worth learning the Arabic script, even for a relatively short period of travel in the Middle East. At the very least, you will be able to recognise place names, destination signs on buses, and so on. The Arabic scriptseems daunting at first, and some people try to avoid learning it by relying on transliterations of Arabic words. This merely stores up problems for later; it is much better to ignore transliterations and use the script from the start. Don’t try to learn the whole alphabet at once. If you learn three letters each day and practise for an hour every evening it will take less than two weeks. Practise writing each letter in all its forms (initial, medial and final), pronouncing it aloud as you write. After you have learned a few letters, practise writing them in groups of three, in the order they occur in the alphabet. Each time you write a group, drop the first letter from the beginning and add another to the end, working through the alphabet: alif-ba-ta, ba-ta-tha, ta-tha-jim, tha-jim-ha,etc. Do this once saying the names of the letters, and once pronouncing them as if they were a word: abata, batatha, tathaja, thajaha,etc. Once you can do the whole series from memory, you are ready to start learning the language. This drill can be tedious, but you won’t regret it. Its advantage is that it teaches you the letters in all their forms, as well as those that cannot join to the following letter. It also implants in your brain the alphabetical order of the letters - very useful later when you want to use an Arabic dictionary.Learning at home WHETHER it is best to start learning Arabic at home or in classes depends on a variety of factors: motivation, cost, time, availability of suitable courses, domestic distractions, etc. If you are able to study at home, there are self-tuition courses that will see you through the beginners’ stage, and perhaps even a little beyond. The traditional textbook-and-cassette courses vary in quality, as do their teaching methods. You may find yourself buying two or three before you find one that suits you. One problem that all these courses share is how to cover the essential grammar without destroying the student’s motivation. Some of them are utterly tedious. Others claim to teach you quickly and effortlessly, but rarely live up to their promises. It is important to check that any books you buy are designed for self-tuition; if not, there may be no way of checking that you have done the exercises correctly. Many of the textbooks listed at Amazon (see the right-hand panel on this page) have been reviewed by other users. By checking the reviews on the Amazon site should get a good idea of whether they will be suitable for you. Having sampled various books and home study courses, our recommendation for a beginner would be the Linguaphonecourse which, unfortunately, is one of the most expensive. The basic learning method with Linguaphone is to follow a written text while listening to a recording of it, and then to repeat each sentence.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 22:30:47 +0000
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