The Arabic Language Learning Thread

[Dumuzi]

Since at least 10 people are interested in learning a thing or two about Arabic, I've decided to make this thread to help give you at least a basic understanding of the Arabic language.

It won't be anything too complicated, I just want you to be able to decipher Arabic words and know a few of them. That way if you are lost in an Arab speaking country, and all the signs are written in Arabic, you would still be able to find your way back to the hotel. Or if you are in a restaurant, and the menu is written in Arabic, you don't end up ordering something you don't want to eat, such as intestine stuffed with rice. Which tastes really good if you're asking me.

In each lesson I will either teach you letters (How they are pronounced and what they look like), a couple of words or a simple grammar lesson.

This first post will also serve as an index that I will often update that has links to all lesson posts that I will make here, so it would be easier to find them. I will try to update this thread with new lessons every weeks or so.

Here, in this thread, you will be able to comment on the lessons, ask questions, ask me to clarify certain things, reply with your homework that I might give you or even just ask me for specific requests as in how to write your name in Arabic or say certain phrases.

Enjoy and good luck!

[hr]

Index

1. Introduction and General Guidelines
2. Letters B, T and Th
3. Ana ismi (my name is)
4. Letters S and Sh
5. Anta jameel/Anti jameela (You are beautiful)
6. Letter Alif
7. Prepositions and Countries

[Dumuzi]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

*cracks fingers

Time for your first lesson!

I will only start with general guidelines that you don't really have to memorize. I just want you to read them and understand them before we start our actual lessons. Those are just some of the rules, but if you have questions let me know right away

1. Arabic is written and read from right to left.

2. There are 28 letters in the Arabic language. 24 of those letters also exist in the English language as a specific letter or just a sound. For example, the sound sh exists in English but it's a specific letter in Arabic. There are letters in English that don't exist in Arabic, like P and V for example.

3. The letters in one word are connected to each other. Think of it as cursive writing. So all letters in Arabic are connected or joined to each other in one word, with the exception of 6 letters. Those letters are connected to the letter before them (on their right) but are not connected to the letter after them (on their left).

4. The letters change the way they look depending on whether they're at the start, middle or end of a word. While this sounds confusing, it's really not. They do look kinda the same, and using common sense you can tell which letter is which.

5. Vowels, especially when they are short, are not written in Arabic. We do have signs that we put above (or under) letters to indicate which vowel to use. But those signs are often not written because for us it's easy to understand the word depending on the context. For example, if I would say I'm sleeping on the bd. you'd understand I mean bed. And if I say You have been a very bd boy. you'd understand I meant bad. Basically, Arabic is like txt spk, I'm afraid

[Medusa]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

*raises hand.

Are we learning how to read Arabic in the Arabic language? Or are we going to learn how to say words in Arabic but written in English for us to pronounce?

[Dumuzi]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

[quote author=Medusa link=topic=455.msg6112#msg6112 date=1287866811]
*raises hand.

Are we learning how to read Arabic in the Arabic language? Or are we going to learn how to say words in Arabic but written in English for us to pronounce?
[/quote]

BOTH!

I will either teach you 1-3 Arabic letters in a lesson so that you'd be able to recognize them in written Arabic words, or I'm gonna teach you a couple of Arabic words using 'English' letters so you know how to pronounce them.

[Dumuzi]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

The letters B, T and Th

Below = B ب
Two dots above = T ت
Three dots above = Th ثFind B ب T ت and Th ث

Remember the rule:

One dot Below = B ب
Two dots above = T ت
Three dots above = Th ث

1.

2.

3.

4.

Click here for Answers

Thanks to this

[ChainLightning]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

How precise is the placement of dots, above or below? Th is giving me trouble, in these first 4 problems.

[Dumuzi]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

[quote author=ChainLightning link=topic=455.msg6492#msg6492 date=1287974548]
How precise is the placement of dots, above or below? Th is giving me trouble, in these first 4 problems.
[/quote]

They are very precise. If you have two dots ABOVE a line it's a T, if you have two dots below that's another letter.

Th looks like this: ث

As you can see they are three dots. I checked the 4 exercises and there are only two TH's. (Hint: they're in the third example)

Also I checked your answers and the good news you got all of them correct! However, you have missed a few. But at least now you know what the B's and T's look like. Good job

I will PM you the correct answers. Check them whenever you want, but look for the TH first

[ChainLightning]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

Actually, I meant in relation to the vertical line, the beginning of a letter. Do the dots always have to sit, sorta like 'in the boat', roughly center of the horizontal?

[Hoho]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

oooh fun I love language! I'm not to keen about the whole missing vowels though! This would be fun to do for Chinese too, but I'm afraid it's not the most text-friendly language to learn in my opinion. I'm afraid everyones pronunciation will be nothing like it in the real world.

anyway, here's mine, number 4! Tricky ; ;

[Dumuzi]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

[quote author=ChainLightning link=topic=455.msg6522#msg6522 date=1287989219]
Actually, I meant in relation to the vertical line, the beginning of a letter. Do the dots always have to sit, sorta like 'in the boat', roughly center of the horizontal?
[/quote]

Ahh, sorry I misunderstood you.

No, the dots don't have to be right in the center.

Remember this picture?


As long as the dots are on (or below) the blue area then you're OK.

[quote author=Hoho link=topic=455.msg6546#msg6546 date=1288002018]
oooh fun I love language! I'm not to keen about the whole missing vowels though! This would be fun to do for Chinese too, but I'm afraid it's not the most text-friendly language to learn in my opinion. I'm afraid everyones pronunciation will be nothing like it in the real world.
[/quote]

Ha, yeah I heard Chinese is too difficult to learn. How do you find Arabic so far? Easy peasy or too difficult?

anyway, here's mine, number 4! Tricky ; ;

You did good, I can see you understood your lesson. You get a gold star

You did miss a T though. Try finding it. And that 'tricky' letter is a letter we haven't studied yet, because it has two dots below. Two dots above is T.

[Hoho]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

ooooh I found it. It's before the one t that's in the middle a bit; took me a while. Arabic doesn't seem to hard. From my knowledge, it's a synthetic language with declension, and I'm familiar with declension. Writting/reading backwards isn't a problem since well Chinese can be written in columns, and sometimes(rarely, I'm not sure on the rule for it) from right to left, and the language is very easy, it's like math! It's almost purely analytical. My eyes just gloss over the arabic letters. What's the alphabet called in arabic anyway?

But now you've got me staying up in the middle of the night when I have school in 6 hours!

[Dumuzi]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

[quote author=Hoho link=topic=455.msg6549#msg6549 date=1288004048]
ooooh I found it. It's before the one t that's in the middle a bit; took me a while.
[/quote]

Correct!

What's the alphabet called in arabic anyway?

We call it the Abgadeya.

As in the ABGDeya (Alpha - Beta - Gamma - Delta) or in Arabic: Alif, Ba', Jeem, Dal.

But now you've got me staying up in the middle of the night when I have school in 6 hours!

Hehe, go to bed! You can learn Arabic later! ;D

[cesara]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

This is awesome. Thanks so much for this thread, D!

[Shahaku]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

Okay, I can't for the life of me get this copy and pasting stuff to work on a mac and I can't find the paint program anyway so I'm going to have to do this the difficult way...

I worked on example 1:
1) In the first word, I'm debating if that's a t since the ending is weird
2) In the second word I have a t and at the end a b
3) In the third word, I'm guessing that the three dots aren't for a th since you said there was only two in the third example? and then a b at the end
4) I think it's the sixth word... ends in a t. The spaces makes counting the words there a little fuzzy, but I'm thinking there are two words between the third and what I think is the sixth. It might be three in which case it's the seventh word I'm referring to.

[Dumuzi]

Re: The Arabic Language Learning Thread

[quote author=Shahaku link=topic=455.msg6640#msg6640 date=1288029693]
Okay, I can't for the life of me get this copy and pasting stuff to work on a mac and I can't find the paint program anyway so I'm going to have to do this the difficult way...
[/quote]

Would you prefer it if I actually copy and paste the text here?

Here are the examples again:

تأهل منتخب الشباب المصري إلى نهائيات كأس الأمم الأفريقية

والتي ستقام في ليبيا العام القادم بعد فوزه على ضيفه السنغالي

بثلاثة أهداف نظيفة في المباراة التي جمعت الفريقين ببورسعيد

اليوم الأحد في إياب التصفيات المؤهلة للبطولة الأفريقية

Just highlight the letter and change its color or something. (It's a bit difficult because I know the text would be too small for you though)

But you actually did a good job. You did miss a B, though.

3) In the third word, I'm guessing that the three dots aren't for a th since you said there was only two in the third example?

You are correct. If you look you'll notice the three dots aren't on above a line like the Th which looks like this ث however the three dots are above three 'teeth' like this ش which is the letter Sh.

But that's another letter that we'll learn about in another lesson, god willing.

PS: I will PM you the correct answers.