Study group?

[Lindley]

Hello!

I'm somewhat new to this forum, so maybe there's already been such topic. Does anybody want to study languages together? I know that there're lots of language exchange sites, but I'd really like a study group with believers
I'm most interested in Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, and French, but other languages are great, too! I can offer help with Russian.

What do you think?

 

[Beckyy25]

I'd like to study with you Arabic. And I can help with Romanian, German and Italian.

 

[Mahammad]

I always wanted to learn 2 languages, Farsi and Hebrew.

I can already read Farsi and we have a lot of similar words, we share a lot of words with Hebrew too but I can't read there letters.

 

[Beckyy25]

Hebrew is the next language on my list, after I'll learn more Arabic.

 

[Mahammad]

How's Arabic going? did you learn how to make إعراب to a sentence? XD the most boring and difficult thing in Arabic grammar and I think it's not necessary.

 

[Lindley]

Becky: Great! Let's tackle that beast
Formy: Oh, I don't think I'm THAT far in Arabic...I'd say, um, still on alphabet? *shy* It's just that I didn't have a study buddy for Arabic, and it has gotten too lonely studying on my own.

I once completed a 1st year course in the local mosque, but now I can't remember even half of it. So I'm starting over. Becky, is that okay with you? I'm a good learner, so I can catch up if the need be

And Hebrew is also my "next" language. Doing it parallel with Arabic would be too confusing.

 

[Beckyy25]

How's Arabic going? did you learn how to make إعراب to a sentence? XD the most boring and difficult thing in Arabic grammar and I think it's not necessary.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Arabic is fine so far, just that I didn't have time to practice lately.

I've been in Dubai this summer (don't know if I told you already) and I bought there some CDs for learning Arabic, especially the pronunciation because the writing is going quite well but I never know how to pronounce things correctly. So from those CDs I've learned only 2 dialogues. I can say now for example:

SabaaH il-khair.
Keef Haalak? Ana mabsoota, shukran. Wa int keef Haalak?
Fee amaan il-laah.
Massa il-khair yaa akh formy.
Keef Haalak? Bi-khair (or there are other words which can be used here, like 'zain', 'Tayyeb' or 'mneeH' but I don't know which ones are used in which Arab country ) il-hamdu li-laah.
Keef il 'Aaaila? Bi-khair, shukran.
TisbiH 'Aala khair.

So what are you saying now? I wrote just the short version, I did learn much more than that from only 2 dialogues.

Becky: Great! Let's tackle that beast
Formy: Oh, I don't think I'm THAT far in Arabic...I'd say, um, still on alphabet? *shy* It's just that I didn't have a study buddy for Arabic, and it has gotten too lonely studying on my own.

I once completed a 1st year course in the local mosque, but now I can't remember even half of it. So I'm starting over. Becky, is that okay with you? I'm a good learner, so I can catch up if the need be

And Hebrew is also my "next" language. Doing it parallel with Arabic would be too confusing.

Yeah, I'm fine with that. So tell me what exactly you've learned until now or what books, CDs you are using for learning.

For me, I have a book for learning the alphabet and how to write each letter. There is also a little bit of grammar, but mainly it explains how and when to write each letter. I've gone through almost the whole book few years ago, but then stopped and so I forgot many things. I still have problems how to write the "hamza" correctly, becasue there are too many rules for that.

And as you read above, I have now some CDs for learning the pronunciation of the words. There is also a coursebook with the CDs and it has lots of grammar and that is great.

Also I have two Arabic-English dictionaries. One is with illustrations for all possible things you encounter in everyday's life. This one is really nice and from there I learned for example the family members in Arabic:

husband: zawj
wife: zawja
sister: ukht
brother: akh
daughter: ibna
son: ibn
grandson: Hafeed
graddaughter: Hafeeda
mother: umm
father: ab
grandfather: jadd
gradmother: jadda... etc.

Now it's your turn.

 

[Mahammad]

I don't know if you know this but I'll do a little explanation.

SabaaH il-khair.---- Morning of goodness ( similar to good morning)


Keef Haalak? ------- how are you

Ana mabsoota, ------- I'm happy(female speaking) ------ I think people from Lebanon says this we in gulf would uswally say "Alhamd llilah bkeer" which means "thanks to Allah I'm in goodness"

shukran. ----- it means thank you but I don't think any Arab say it after someone asking them "how are you" in gulf we would say "Allah Yesalmk" which means "may Allah protect you" it is like thank you, I know it's strange

Wa int keef Haalak? ----- and you how are you?




Fee amaan il-laah. ----- it means "In Allah's safety" it's like saying good bye, you can also say "ma' Alsalamah" which means "with safety"


Massa il-khair yaa akh formy. ------- evening of goodness brother Formy ( evening of goodness = good evening)


Keef Haalak? ----- Haalak is usually said by people from Sham (بلاد الشا&#1605 in gulf we say keef al-haal

'Tayyeb' we say Alhamd lillah tayyeb or Alhamd llilah bkheer

'mneeH' Lebenese and some people from Sham say mneeh




when someone says sabbah alkhair or massa' alkhair you would respwned with Sabbah/msaa' Al-noor which means something like morning/evening of lightness

 

[Beckyy25]

Thanks for writing the English translation for the Arabic phrases which I wrote. I knew that already (I mean the English translation) but you added a few things which I didn't know. And it is really great to have a native speaker telling us which words or expressions are really used in everyday's life and which not. Thank you formy.

You said in one of your previous posts here:

did you learn how to make إعراب to a sentence? XD the most boring and difficult thing in Arabic grammar and I think it's not necessary.

You didn't explain to me what this means I don't know what إعراب is.

 

[Lindley]

Oh, this is gonna be embarrassing. I have literally TONS of materials, and yet can't say a phrase! Shame on me and my descendants

Here're the main books and courses I have:

Alif-Baa

Standard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course
Author: Schulz, Krahl, Reuschel

Al arabiiatu beine iadeik - Beginner (Student's Book + Teacher's Book + Audio)
Author: Abdurrahman ibn Ibragim al-Fawzan, Muhtar at-Tahir Husein
Publisher: Al-arabiiatu lildjamia

Teach Yourself Gulf Arabic (COMPLETE COURSE)

Teach Yourself Arabic

Michel Thomas Arabic

Assimil Arabic (only book!)

Arabic on the Move

Colloquial Arabic of Egypt, Egyptian Arabic Phrasebook

Read and Speak Arabic - Jane Wightwick & Mahmoud Gaafar

Kullu Tamam! An Introduction to Egyptian Colloquial Arabic

Arabic Verbs & Essentials of Grammar, 2nd Ed


In general, I've been able to follow the dialogue you wrote, Becky. Some phrases were new, and some I already knew (no pun intended ) Are there any books that we both have? I can share, if you want to. I'm going to do an intensive study tomorrow - re-learn alphabet, basic phrases. I'll also learn this dialogue you posted! It'd be great if we could use the same course.


Fromy - Thanks for the explanations! I've also heard Arabs say "Alhamd llilah bkeer" instead of. A native speaker who's willing to help - that's awesome And I agree with Becky - please, do tell us what that phrase means

 

[Beckyy25]

I don't think there are books that we both have, but that's not really bad IMO. I mean you can post one lesson from your book (one book you think is the best and with time we'll go through all of them, hopefully ) and then I post one leson from my book and so on. Do you think that would be a good idea?

What I posted above was not the whole dialogue as written in my book, it was just some phrases that came to my mind as an example for formy. So do not learn it as it is written there, I will post the whole dialogue if you like, with more detailed explanations.

Yeah, it's really great that formy wants to help us. I hope you won't change your mind formy. LOL

BTW Lindley, I don't know how you learn languages (or things in general) but I do learn things systematically. I don't leave anything out and I ask as long as I understand everything. I hope this doesn't bother you or formy. Also I make all kind of lists for all possible things. Maybe I'll post later such a list I made for the first 2 dialogues I've learned from my book so far.

Oh yeah, I also wanted to ask you one more thing Lindley. Why are you learning Arabic?
I'm learning it because I want to read one day the Qur'an in Arabic. Every Muslim says that the real beauty of the Qur'an can be seen only if you read it in Arabic and as I'm a curious person (often too curious ), I decided to not give up until I'll learn the language. And also I like the sound of this language, although I have to admit that the sound of the Qur'an recitation is much more beautiful than the everyday spoken Arabic.

Oh, it's time to finish this post.

 

[Beckyy25]

Oh yeah, I forgot to give you the exact name of the books I have.

1) Arabic Reading and writing made easy - by Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips
(This Muslim man has a great and easy way to explain things. )

2) Arabic for beginners - by Syed Ali

3) Arabic English visual bilingual dictionary - designed for Dorling Kindersley Limited

4) How to say it in Arabic - by Mahmoud Farouk Al Malki (Vol. 1 & 2; each has 8 Audio CDs and 1 coursebook)

 

[Lindley]

Yay! I've found the perfect study partner. God IS good Whenever I'm studying smth, I dig until I can pretty much understand and explain everything. Many of my friends find it quite annoying And I love making lists Currently I'm working through the Japanese verbs book, and writing out all verbs into separate lists for further study. Ah, the joy... So, I think that we'll be a great team together!

Your idea for lessons is good - let's start with your book, cause I still need to choose one. You can either post the whole dialogue (the one you posted some phrases from), or choose a new one and we'll do it together. Don't worry about my level, I don't mind doing some additional work on the lesson

I'm learning Arabic for the same reason as you - to be able to read Quran in its language. Plus, since my sis is a Muslim and her stepdad an Arab, I've pretty close ties to Arabic culture and people. I really want to "partake" in their culture and be able to converse in their language

 

[Mahammad]

إعراب means something like analyze, it is one of the aspects of the Arabic grammar and morphology.

I-irab is which you analyze a whole sentence it's one of the reasons why the Arabic grammar is very difficult.

example:

أعرب/أعربي الجملة التالية. أكلَ يوسفُ التفاحةَ

جملة فعلية(لأنها بدأت بفع&#1604

أكل: فعل ماضي مبني على الفتح
يوسف: فاعل مرفوع وعلامة رفعه الضمة
التفاحة:مفعول به منصوب وعلامة نصبه الفتحة

this is a very simple example of I-irab but it's very difficult and unnecessary to learn, native Arabs would need to study 4-7 years in college to fully understand it, for me I suck in Arabic grammar big time but I don't make mistakes at least not many

this is a the wiki I-irab link:

ʾIʿrab - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the one who developed the Arabic language was the great scholar Sibawayh he was the best scholar of the Arabic language, he also was a Persian.

 

[Beckyy25]

Yay, so we've found each other.

You know, I said for the first lesson I'll scan my lists which I made and I will post them here. The quality is not the best, but if you save them on your computer and zoom them in, then you should be able to read everything.

OK, so I have a paper with the whole alphabet and I have some lists for the first lesson. The first lesson has two dialogues but I didn't finish the second dialogue yet.

The Alphabet

Lesson 1 = ad-dars wahid
Dialogue 1
Page1

Dialogue 1
Page 2

Dialogue 2
Page1

Dialogue 2
Page 2

The way I posted it here, you can also see the Arabic writing. You know, I would like to learn the Arabic writing for each word/phrase we are learning. But I do not have an Arabic keyboard, so maybe formy could help us here and post in the future the Arabic writing of the words. Would you do that for us?

And also formy, please correct us whenever we write something wrong. And tell me if I made any writing mistakes in the above dialogues. I guess you're our teacher now.

 

[Beckyy25]

إعراب means something like analyze, it is one of the aspects of the Arabic grammar and morphology.

I-irab is which you analyze a whole sentence it's one of the reasons why the Arabic grammar is very difficult.

example:

أعرب/أعربي الجملة التالية. أكلَ يوسفُ التفاحةَ

جملة فعلية(لأنها بدأت بفع&#1604

أكل: فعل ماضي مبني على الفتح
يوسف: فاعل مرفوع وعلامة رفعه الضمة
التفاحة:مفعول به منصوب وعلامة نصبه الفتحة

this is a very simple example of I-irab but it's very difficult and unnecessary to learn, native Arabs would need to study 4-7 years in college to fully understand it, for me I suck in Arabic grammar big time but I don't make mistakes at least not many

this is a the wiki I-irab link:

ʾIʿrab - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the one who developed the Arabic language was the great scholar Sibawayh he was the best scholar of the Arabic language, he also was a Persian.

I feel like this after reading your post.

 

[Mahammad]

so which Arabic are you learning? it's better to learn Fus'ha the original Arabic, it is the original one and the only one that doesn't contradict the grammar the other local ones like the Najdi-Lebenese-Egyption-Iraqi are nothing but dialects, I recommend to you to study only the classical Arabic it is the language of the Qur'an

Modern Standard Arabic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dialogue 1 page 1

in Arabic we say الدرس الأول not الدرس واحد

it means the first lesson -

الدرس الثاني/الثالث/الرابع/الخامس/السادس/السابع

----

it is أنتِ/أنتَ not إنت/إنت

and for a group it is not أنتوا but أنتم




Dialogue 1
Page 2

same thing أنت not إنت

oh your learning the Shami version?




Dialogue 2
Page1

in Arabic Fus'ha we would say يا أخي not يا أخ.




I hope I didn't make any mistakes, and Allah knows best.

by the way is that your writing؟ it's better then mine

 

[Beckyy25]

so which Arabic are you learning? it's better to learn Fus'ha the original Arabic, it is the original one and the only one that doesn't contradict the grammar the other local ones like the Najdi-Lebenese-Egyption-Iraqi are nothing but dialects, I recommend to you to study only the classical Arabic it is the language of the Qur'an

Modern Standard Arabic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dialogue 1 page 1

in Arabic we say الدرس الأول not الدرس واحد

it means the first lesson -

الدرس الثاني/الثالث/الرابع/الخامس/السادس/السابع

----

it is أنتِ/أنتَ not إنت/إنت

and for a group it is not أنتوا but أنتم




Dialogue 1
Page 2

same thing أنت not إنت

oh your learning the Shami version?




Dialogue 2
Page1

in Arabic Fus'ha we would say يا أخي not يا أخ.

I will note what you wrote above on my papers. I will do that tomorrow, I'm too tired now.
And I have no idea which version I'm learning.

I hope I didn't make any mistakes, and Allah knows best.

I hope so too.

by the way is that your writing؟ it's better then mine

Which one do you mean? The Arabic writing?
In any case, all that is written there is my writing. You really think the writing looks good?

 

[Lindley]

Yikes, fromy - you've scared me with that I-irab post I'm kinda in state of half-coma right now

Thanks for the scans, Becky! I'm going to study them after posting this. And your writing DOES look really cool - mine is atrocious...And how far are you in Arabic? I mean, speaking, reading...? I've re-learned the alphabet today *proud*

From what I know, Modern Standard Arabic is used mainly on TV and in print. People don't speak in MSA, they always use some kind of dialect. And by Shami I think fromy meant Levantine Arabic, right? Palestine, Israel, Jordan, etc area.

 

[Mahammad]

Which one do you mean? The Arabic writing?
In any case, all that is written there is my writing. You really think the writing looks good?

Yeah it's really good especially for a beginner, mine is very bad.