Judith's language learning blog

I just realized that I never posted my summary of 2011… sorry for that.
This is a personal report, no language-learning wisdom I’m afraid.

If you love foreign languages as much as I do, your mouth is probably watering at the idea of picking up a new alphabet without much effort. I know some people who’d do it just for the fun of it, or for bragging rights… yes, I like to hang out with crazy language lovers.

Anyway, there are also practical reasons you might want to know another alphabet. Especially if you’re living in the country, you need it for everything, from reading street signs and maps to figuring out where to ring at an apartment building.

Teaching foreign scripts has been my particular fascination, because traditional textbooks consistently do it wrong (or, more commonly, don’t do it at all). My first experiment in that area was the creation of a Greek alphabet course at Wikibooks. Next, a site to learn the Korean script – I still get several e-mails with feedback or support requests every day from that one, but no income. Earlier this year, I quickly threw together a course for the Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet (in Esperanto) for those who attended the Internacia Junulara Kongreso in Kyiv. That one was received really well – knowing Cyrillic is a lifesaver in the Ukraine!

So I started working on book about an alphabet that gives a lot of students trouble: the Arabic one. This is an all-new course with lots of words for practice, unrelated to my failed 2008 attempt at RWP Arabic. I learned a lot since, both about writing this kind of course and about the Arabic language.

You can read a preview of the book and buy it from Lulu. There’s a paperback and a DRM-free ebook version. Please have a look and let me know if you like it.

Vowelled vs. non-vowelled Arabic was actually a huge issue for me when I started out. I started on and stopped using a lot of textbooks because they did not indicate vowels in crucial places. Finally I found that “Ultimate Arabic” uses vowelled texts throughout (except in Review sections), but as a textbook it’s much worse than Teach Yourself for example. The solution came in the form of Langenscheidt Praktisches Lehrbuch Arabisch (2007 edition), which gradually makes the shift towards less vowels and I was able to follow along. The system I now use for my cards is also taken from this book:
1. assume that each Arabic consonant is followed by a short A; the only exception is if it’s the last consonant in a word (i. e. words tend to end in consonants)
2. if the vowel sound is something else, which doesn’t happen all that often, then the other vowel will be indicated with a vowel diacritic, yaa or waaw.
3. if there’s no vowel, i. e. if there’s a consonant cluster, sukoon is on the letter, as usual
4. before long vowels, it is superfluous to indicate the same vowel using a diacritic.

Essentially, it treats Arabic like Devanagari, and with very good results. Arabic texts written this way really have a minimum of diacritics, so it’s easier to get used to not having the vowels. Rule 1 in particular helped me a lot in becoming less dependent on vowellisation. It’s strange that nobody else came up with this suggestion.

Sample text (randomly taken from a children’s book) with full vowellisation:
يَزُولُ خَوْفِي حِينَ يُشْعِلُ بَابَا النُّورَ الصَّفِيرَ فِي غُرْفَتِي

Same text with this system:
يزولُ خَوْفي حينَ يُشْعِلُ بابا النّورَ الصّفيرَ في غُرْفني

Same text non-vowelled:
يزول خوفي حين يشعل بابا النّور الصّفير في غرفني

More posts related to learning Arabic

I had a lot of trouble with the distinction between dark and non-dark consonants, like Saad vs. Siin. At first, I only heard the difference in the following “aah” sound and no difference at all in the consonant. I sensitized my hearing by requesting Arabic native speakers on Rhinospike.com to record minimal pairs for me: each dark consonant combined with each of the vowels, and each non-dark equivalent consonant combined with each of the vowels, allowing a direct comparison. Audio here

The remaining problem was of course how to produce this distinction myself. My textbooks were supremely unhelpful, just talking about ‘darker’, ‘emphatic’ or ‘pharyngealized’ sounds without telling me how to produce this effect. Finally I came across Michel Thomas’ Arabic course and it had good advice: the distinction between non-dark and dark S is close to the difference between the S in “see” or “sorry” in English. If you keep the tongue position from “sorry” and combine it with different vowel (like “ee”), you wind up with the Arabic dark S, or something very close to it. The other dark consonants can be acquired by assuming the same unusual tongue position.

More posts related to learning Arabic

My goals for the year – and a handy tool for you.

A personal blog post – no language-learning wisdom, just a report of what I did and where I stand now.

Developing your foreign language vocabulary has to be the most critical part of learning any foreign language. Without vocabulary, grammar is absolutely useless, and practice impossible. Also, very often vocabulary is the biggest hurdle when trying to understand fun authentic materials in your target language, and vocabulary is the biggest issue going from intermediate to advanced level (and beyond).

Well, I’m addicted to learning vocabulary. Yes, addicted is the right word. I can’t go a day without. It’s too much fun. How? I will tell you, but I want you to first promise that you’ll give it a try. I suggested this tip to many people, and most were skeptical at first, but those who tried it still randomly come up and thank me for it. It changed the way they learn languages.

… a continuation from part 1.

Here I will cover how to improve your pronunciation, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, writing, speaking and anything else.

Are you interested in language learning? If you’re reading this blog, then probably yes. However, I’m sure that you’re not aware just how much the internet can help you in learning languages. My favorite resources below – this is going to be a lengthy post…

So I did 30 days of vegetarianism and 30 days of intensive Arabic study. The results are far from impressive.