#[ it is very similar to semitic language speaker trying to speak english ]

[doseofarabic]

Dose # 1 - Introduction

Facts about the language

It’s a Semitic language, which is a branch of languages that includes languages like Arabic, Amharic, Aramaic and Hebrew among other languages.

It has millions speakers worldwide. People usually refer to 22 countries as “the Arab world” but I personally prefer to talk about “Arabic speaking countries” since it gives a better representation of the countries that speak the language and have Arabic as one of the official languages which are 25 countries in the Western part of Asia as well as Northern Africa.

The 25 countries are: Saudi Arabia, Chad, Algeria, Comoros, Eritrea, Djibouti, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Bahrain, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

People might want to learn for a variety of reasons, whether it is to live in an Arabic speaking country or environment, for work purposes, or for religious purposes. Muslims Arabic holds a special place since it is the language of the Holy Quran.

Variations

Since many regions speak the language. There are a lot of variation in the language which I try to summarize.

To put it simply, on one hand we have the Standard Arabic, which is the formal Arabic. The older variation of Standard Arabic is Classical Arabic, among is the Holly Quran which is the most eloquent, inimitable form of Arabic.  

Here is a small post I made about MSA and Classical Arabic.

I will focus on the modern variant of Standard Arabic which is “Modern Standard Arabic”, or MSA. Nowadays, this variant is used in official correspondence, books, magazines and writings in general. It is important.

There are also dialects which are the “spoken Arabic”, each region has their own dialects but they are usually grouped per region and similarities:

Gulf dialects; Levantine dialects; Maghreb dialects; Nile Valley and Egyptian

Some dialects are not within these groups per se but they are somewhat close like Yemeni and Iraqi (which I would associate with the Gulf dialects).

I could also place Djibouti, Somalia, Mauritania and Chad in a separate category as well

These groupings over simplify the variety of the dialects but it’s to make the concept closer to understand especially for those who are not familiar with it. I spoke about dialects in a post I made a where I tried to provide an explanation for the difference in dialects, if you’re interested read it [here].

Usually, people learn Arabic to be able to speak a certain dialect, I recommend studying the standard Arabic first or at least having some sort of knowledge before delving into the dialects.

In my lessons, I will focus on Modern Standard Arabic, but I do make dialectal posts on my blog as well which can be found [here].

Arabic alphabets

Arabic is written from right to left, and the letters connect to form words. The letters are read as they are written in 99.9% of the cases, except for only very minor exceptions. It's also very phonetically consisentent, very similar to Spanish for example when comapred to English were different letters can be read differently according to the word.

Arabic has 28 letters, and because the writing connects the words together to form sentences, each letter can be written in 4 ways: the isolated form, the initial form (how it would look like if it came at the beginning of the word), medial form (how it would look like if it was in the middle of the word), and finally, the final form (how it would look like if it were at the end of the word).

However, it is important to note that not all letters connect with other letters, for example, the letters (ا / د / ذ  / ر  / ز / و) do not connect to each other, and only connects if the other letters in the alphabet comes before it.

The Arabic letters are simple, and many letters resemble one another, I usually refer to letters that are similar as “sisters”. The resemblance in shape doesn’t necessarily mean that the sounds are similar though.

There are two types of vowels, short vowels or harakat, and these are the diacritics or little accents that can be found on top of each letters; and long vowels or mudood which are three letters ا   (which makes the sound “aah” ), و   (which makes the sound of “oo” like “pool” ) and ي   (which makes the sound “ee” like feel). Usually, when talking about “vowels” people are referring to the long vowels.

The vowel is twice as long as the haraka but it has the same sound.

Grammar & vocabulary

Arabic is a very well structured language, and it has a very consistent grammar, exceptions are not very common and it’s very logical.

A notable thing to note about Arabic grammar is that first of all, there are grammatical cases, like Turkish and German for example.

This means that the end of the word changes according to its role in a sentence. In the case of Arabic, the harakat of the end of the word changes depending on the place and role it plays in a sentence.

So don’t be surprised when you see the same word ending with different harakat. Because it is a language that has this grammatical case system, the sentence structure is flexible.

For example تُوتُ  (berries) is the same as تُوتَ  and تُوتِ . The difference here is the place in the sentence.

Another thing is that Arabic has a root system, most words have a root (most likely made up of three letters), the root has a certain meaning and all the derived words will contain the same three letters of the root as well as a certain meaning that is carried with the derivation.

For example the word كَتَبَ  is the root and it means “to write”, we derive words like كَاتِب  (writer or author) مَكْتُوب (written) and كِتَاب (book) and مَكْتَبَة (library). If you know the verb (root) it’ll be easy to guess the meaning of the word or have a guess on what the word is about.

Arabic letters : how are they arranged?

There are two ways that the letters in Arabic are arranged, the first one is called التَّرْتِيب الأبجَدِيُّ   attartīb alʾbǧadiy. This is the old order of the letters, it was based on the order of the letters in Semetic languages, the order is also used in numbers (similar to roman numerals, how a letter can have a numerical value like (i) which is the number a).

This order is still used when making lists, for example if you’re saying point a) point b) , people are more likely to use this order.

For point c) in Arabic people will say ج)  and not ت.

The letters are grouped in these words, in this same order

أبجد هوز حطي كلمن سعفص قرشت ثخذ ضظغ

التَّرْتِيبُ الهِجَائِيَ attartīb alhiǧāʾiy is an order that was later introduced. This order arranges words in the alphabet according to the similarities between the way the letters are drawn. It’s the one used when studying Arabic.

This is the order of these letters

أ ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن هـ و ي

For simplicity’s sake, I suggest focusing on the second order, but it’s good to know that it’s not the only one.

I hope this has been an interesting introduction to read!

Homework

Complete this small quiz to measure how much you understood from this lesson

Next lesson : we will study the different harakat and vowels.

[hebrewing]

Hebrew Basics #1: All about the Hebrew Alphabet

In order to learn a language, the very first thing you need to know is reading it. This is a basic step in all language studies. Hopefully you’ll start conquering that by the end of this lesson :)

The Hebrew alphabet… isn’t an alphabet. Technically speaking, it’s an “‘abjad” (an acronym of the first four letters of the Arabic ‘abjad), although it is commonly called an alphabet (as I’ll continue calling it for simplicity’s sake). Characteristic of Semitic languages (to which Hebrew belongs, among Arabic and many others, extinct and alive), the ‘abjad’s main characteristic is (almost) complete lack of vowels. Every letter stands for a consonant, and vowels are simply omitted. It’s equivalent to writing English “lk ths.”

While using an ‘abjad-like system with English is quite hellish, the case for Hebrew is quite different. Due to its relatively simple vowel system and unique Semitic grammar and morphology (how words are formed and act in a sentence), using an ‘abjad is actually quite a reasonable choice for Hebrew. Oversimplifying, Hebrew words are comprised of a root and a template, each contribute meaning to the final word. The root is comprised of (usually three) consonants, and the template describes the vowels, prefixes and suffixes you insert between and around the consonants.

The Letters

The Hebrew alphabet, called הָאַלֶף־בֵּית/אָלֶפְבֵּית הָעִבְרִי ha’álef-bét ha’ivrí, is comprised of 22 letters.

The first, most important fact is that Hebrew is read from right to left.

Note: the names aren’t all that important to learning the letters. Simply learning their pronunciation is enough at this point.

Five of the letters, for historical reasons, have two different forms - a word-initial and -medial form, and a separate final form. These are marked with a 1 on the table.

As you might have noticed, some letters have multiple pronunciations, and some of these overlap with one another. This was caused by many changes that happened to the language’s phonology over the years since the alphabet was created (some 3,000 years ago in its earliest forms).

The most notable of these letters are the בֶּגֶ״ד כֶּפֶ״ת* béged kéfet letters, marked with a 2. These days, for historical reasons**, only three letters actually change their pronunciation depending on their position in a word–ב bet, כ kaf, פ pe–and they are the only ones marked on the list, pronounced as /b~v/, /k~kh/, /p~f/, respectively. Generally speaking, for native words, at the beginning of a word and directly after a consonant (with no vowel in-between), they are pronounced with their ‘hard’ pronunciation (/b/ /k/ /p/), and in all other positions with their ‘soft’ pronunciation (/v/ /kh/ /f/). Loanwords do not follow these rules, and are pronounced as they are in the original language.

*Acronyms and initialisms, as well as Hebrew letter names and numerals, are marked by the Hebrew punctuation mark ״, called גֵּרְשַׁיִם gershayim, and placed before the last letter of the phrase. It is similar looking to the Latin quotation mark, and is often confused with it even by native speakers, but nonetheless different.

**You might have noticed that ‘historically’, ‘for historical reasons’, etc. are somewhat a trend in this lesson. Hebrew is an incredibly old language, about 5,000 years old in fact, riddled with old tales and tradition. During that period it changed a lot, it even died for 2,000 years and came back to haunt us in the last 150. Despite this, the Hebrew writing system as we know it today was tailored (albeit not perfectly) for Hebrew as it was spoken some 2,500 years ago, and remained relatively unchanged during that whole period. Therefore, there are a lot of peculiarities in the Hebrew alphabet that we simply do not have time to cover, stemming from the complicated history of the language.

There are also a handful of letters which, for historical reasons, are still pronounced the same.

א alef + ע áyin (+ ה he) = ‘ (glottal stop) or none (ה he only as none)

soft ב bet + ו vav = /v/

ח chet + soft כ kaf = /ch/*

ט tet + ת tav = /t/

hard כ kaf + ק qof = /k/*

ס sámekh + שׂ sin = /s/

*I still transcribe hard כ kaf and ק qof, as well as ח chet and soft כ kaf differently (/k/ vs /q/, /ch/ vs /kh/) because, well, it’s easier than the other homophones.

To form a word, simply string together letters - the vowels magically appear in your head!

ספר (séfer) - book

ספר (sapár) - barber, hairdresser

ספר (sipér) - (he) told, (he) cut hair

ספר (supár) - (passive of above verb)

ספר (sper) - spare (English loanword)

…Yeah, that’s easier said than done.

See, in general with the ‘abjad system, all words pronounced with the same consonants are written exactly the same, which can create a heck of a lot of homographs, words written the same but pronounced differently. This problem has been cleverly solved using אִמּוֹת קְרִיאָה - ‘imót kri’á (literally mothers of reading). These are letters in Hebrew that serve a double function as a consonant and a vowel, marked with a 3 on the table. Noticed the letters ו vav and י yod have multiple pronunciations?

In many words, vowels (especially /i/, /o/ and /u/) are marked using one of these letters to reduce the number of homographs. For example, the words listed earlier are usually written:

ספר (séfer) - book

ספר (sapár) - barber, hairdresser

סיפר (sipér) - (he) told, (he) cut hair

סופר (supár) - (passive of above verb) 

ספייר (sper) - spare (English loanword)

These letters can be conveniently memorized using the acronym אֶהֶוִ״י ‘eheví.

Interestingly enough, Yiddish, written with the same 22 letters, uses these letters (and some more) to create a full alphabet, where each and every vowel in a word is written, as well as the consonants. But we aren’t learning Yiddish here.

Learning when and where to put ‘imót kri’á comes with time, as it is often up to the reader where to put them. The style of writing I’ll be teaching with is called כְּתִיב חֲסֵר ktiv chasér, or ‘lacking spelling,’ where the bare minimum of ‘imót kri’á are used, and all vowels are indicated using vowel points, נִקּוּד niqúd, explained in the next section. This style is often used in children’s books and Biblical inscriptions; ktiv chasér is historically the only way Hebrew was written. This is in opposition to כְּתִיב מָלֵא ktiv malé, ‘full spelling,’ where ‘imót kri’á are used and vowel points aren’t; this is the style of writing virtually every modern Hebrew text is written in.

This might seem all confusing at this point, but let me assure you it isn’t. Once you wrap your head around it and start reading more and more of the language, you just instinctively know how a word is read off the bat. Context is usually more than enough to settle any ambiguities in how to read a word.

Vowel Points

Vowel points, נִקּוּד niqúd, are the diacritics used in Hebrew to indicate the vowels of a word, to complement the ambiguous ‘abjad system. These are the little dots and lines around each letter in previous examples.

Hebrew has five vowels: /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ - pronounced almost identically to those in Spanish and Greek, to name a few. However, it has 13 different vowel points. Historically, and still in some traditional readings of the Bible, each mark had a different pronunciation, but in Modern Hebrew a lot of them merged with one another.

The final form of מ mem, ם, is used as a placeholder here.

Make no mistake, the two vowels marked with an asterisk are in fact the same vowel. For now, know that in most cases it is pronounces as /a/. The /o/ pronunciation is rare, only in certain templates of words, and distinguishing between them is out of the scope of this lesson. For now, the only common word that uses the /o/ pronunciation is כָּל kol, meaning ‘all’.

Short and long vowels are only traditional nomenclature - in practice, all vowels in each row are pronounced with the same length. תְּנוּעוֹת חֲטוּפוֹת tnu’ót chatufót are stlightly different, but nonetheless pronounced the same. Note that the some long vowels use ‘imót kri’á intrinsically.

דָּגֶשׁ Dagésh:

The point on the bottom left, the דָּגֶשׁ dagésh, is an interesting topic. However, the only relevant point to this lesson is that it distinguishes between hard (with dagesh) and soft (without) pronunciations of בֶּגֶ״ד כֶּפֶ״ת béged kéfet letters.

שְׁוָא Shva:

There are two types of shva: נַע na’ ‘moving’ - indicating an /e/, and נַח nach ‘still’ - indicating no vowel. Distinguishing between them is way out of the scope of this lesson, so for now the only way to tell them apart is through experience and transliterations.

שִׁי״ן Shin Points:

You might have noticed the rogue ש shin at the bottom of the table there. ש shin is different to other letters with double pronunciations, as it had always had two different pronunciations. Therefore, it got a different point to distinguish between the two: a dot on the right spoke of the ש shin indicates the common /sh/ pronunciation - שׁ, and a dot on the left spoke indicates the rarer /s/ pronunciation - שׂ. Each pronunciation is subsequently called שִׁי״ן יְמַנִית shin yemanít ‘right שִׁי״ן’ and שִׁי״ן שְֹמָאלִית shin smalít ‘left שִׁי״ן’.

All word-final letters have no vowel, unless marked otherwise. Most letters cannot even take a vowel mark at the end of a word. Exceptionally, ה he, ח chet, final ך kaf, ע áyin, ת tav, in certain circumstances do take vowel marks. ש shin must always have either a left or a right point, but no other vowel mark.

Practice!

Try reading these basic Hebrew words, then look at the answer key at the end to see if you were right.

1. אֲנִי 2. כֶּלֶב 3. בְּתוֹךְ 4. שֻׁלְחָן 5. פְּרִי 6. כָּל 7. יַם 8. עֵץ 9. אֲדָמָה 10. שְׂמֹאל

Answer Key

‘aní – I (me)

kélev – dog

betókh – inside

shulchán – table

pri – fruit

kol – all

yam – sea

‘ets – tree

‘adamá – ground, earth

smol – left (vs. right)

Alright then, that’s it for today! Follow me for more Hebrew lessons, hopefully they won’t all be as long as this one :D

לְהִתְרַאוֹת בַּפַּעַם הַבָּאָה! (lehitraót bapá’am haba’á)

See you next time!

[onlinequranschool-blog]

How to Learn Arabic Alphabet

Among the number of foreign languages that you can study, why should you learn Arabic? It is not an easy language to learn and has nothing in common with English. Therefore, a speaker of English will have a difficult time to learn it. But looking at the positive side, learning Arabic can offer several benefits.

If you think of the advantages of learning Arabic, the effort and time that you would dedicate to learn the language would all be worth it.

Arabic is a Southern-Central Semitic language. It is spoken in most parts of the Arabian Peninsula, parts of Middle East and North Africa. In these regions, the languages with the most number of speakers, in chronological order are Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish and Hebrew. These languages belong to different language families. Turkish is part of the Turkic family. The Indo-European language family is represented by Kurdish and Persian. Hebrew and Arabic belong to the Afro-Asiatic language family. Aside from these major languages, people in the Middle East speak around 20 minority languages.

Arabic is a macrolanguage that has 30 modern varieties or dialects. Literary Arabic, which is also called Standard Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), is used today in formal speech and in writing in the Arab world while Classical Arabic was used in Islamic literature of the 7th to 9th centuries. It is the language of the Quran.

The basis of the Modern Standard Arabic is the classical version and the differences between the two are related to simplification and modernization in writing and speaking styles. The MSA is used in the modern versions of the Qur’an and the modern editions of the novels and poetries from the Abbasid and Umayyad periods.

Why Learn Arabic Language?

Arabic is the fourth most spoken language in the world. About 315 million people in 58 countries speak the Arabic as their first language…

Learning     Arabic will make you stand out, as there are very few people from the West     that speak Arabic. Having command of Arabic will make you appear clever     and sophisticated.

Learning     a language is learning about the culture of the country where the language     is spoken. Arab culture is rich and interesting. Learning the language     will enable you to read some of the famous classic literature. If you are     a fan of Aladdin, Ali Baba and Sindbad the Sailor, imagine reading the     many stories in The One Thousand and One Nights (Alf laylah wa laylah)     or the poems of Ḥāfeẓ and Ahmad Shawqi in their original versions.

You'll     be able to benefit economically. Natural resources abound in the Middle     East and speaking Arabic will open many job positions for you.

You'll     be able to experience true Arab hospitality. Arabs are very proud of their     language. Unlike the Germans who are not impressed when foreigners are     able to speak their language, the opposite is shown by Arabs. Once a     native speaker of Arabic hears a foreigner speak a few words in Arabic,     they would be very eager and happy to help you learn their language.

When     you learn Arabic you'll be able to appreciate the region's unique way of     life, cuisine, literature, music and art. You'll open the door to their     rich culture that is not often exposed to the Western world. You'll     appreciate their cultural practices and products and understand the values     that matter much to them, such as hospitality, dignity and honor.

You'll     be able to understand Islam better if you're able to read the     Qurʾān and understand its teachings.

You'll     have an edge over competition even if you are in the West. The demand for     people fluent in Arabic is quite high and only a few people from the West     attempt to learn Arabic. The     secret services in the U.S. need people who are fluent speakers of Arabic.     There are many businesses, including translating and interpreting that are     in need of Arabic speakers. Other fields that need Arabic speakers include     intelligence and foreign service, consulting, banking and finance,     education and journalism.

When     you know Arabic, you'll be able to have an easier time learning other     languages spoken in the region, such as Farsi or Persian, Turkish, Urdu     and even Hebrew. Most of the vocabularies of these languages are derived     from and similar to Arabic words so you will be able to quickly grasp the     semantic and grammatical concepts of the other languages.

Traveling     to the Middle East would be easier. A good number of Arabs are able to     speak English but the larger part of the population only uses Arabic as     their primary language. Even if you can only speak common words and phrases,     it is better to speak the local language. It would help you appreciate the     traditional villages and other points of interest.

If you     are an American, you might avail of the financial incentives the U.S.     government grants to people who are interested to learn Arabic. The     government has declared that Arabic is a language that has strategic     importance and the National Strategic Language Initiative promotes the     learning of several languages that are critical to the foreign policies     and relationships of the government. It provides learning opportunities     and scholarships for those interested to learn a critical language. The     support covers course from beginners to advanced levels, professional     development, teacher exchanges, opportunities for intensive instruction     and study abroad programs. You can check the scholarships available from     the Critical Language Scholarship Program, the Boren Awards of the     National Security Education Program and the Arabic Overseas Language     Flagship Program.

If you     are planning to join a trading firm, an import-export company or engage in     business yourself, many opportunities are available in the Arab nations.     Its population is growing and with a huge GDP, it is a prime market for     export of services and goods. Learning Arabic and the culture of the     people who speak the language will make it easier for you to negotiate and     conduct business.

Nations     that speak Arabic contributed significantly to global civilization. Many     Arabs contributed to the advancement of philosophy, medicine and science.     They have vast libraries that preserved the learnings from Byzantine,     Roman and Greek cultures. You can explore the world of architecture,     astrology, navigation, mathematics and literature in their first language.

Learning     Arabic can make you an ambassador for your home country. Many people in     the U.S. view Arabic speakers negatively because they only get to learn     about them from mass media and movies. The situation is the same in the     Arab world. If you are studying or working in the Middle East, you'll be     able to help break up the misconceptions the Arabs have about the     Americans and the United States.

You     gain vital language skills when you learn Arabic. It is easier to learn     French or Spanish and these languages will allow you to travel or work in     various countries, especially in Europe. However, you have more     competition because there are more learners and speakers of these     languages. If you learn Arabic, you are sure that there would be a great     demand for your language skills as the supply is scarce. Further, if you     learn Mandarin Chinese for example, your career focus would only be in a     few countries, whereas if you learn Arabic, your opportunities are wider     as the language is spoken in 58 countries.

How to Learn Arabic Language?

1- Decide which form of Arabic you want to learn

There are many types of Arabic. It is the mother tongue and official language of nearly 30 countries in the middle east and northern Africa. There are different accents and a variety of local pronunciations. If you’re planning to spend time in one area, you’ll want to choose the variation that pertains to that region.

One such example is Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, which is the most widespread regional Arabic dialect and is most often used in television and movies.

However, brand new students should also consider Modern Standard Arabic, the official language of 22 Arab countries and one of the official languages of the United Nations.

2- Start with the basics

It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to learn Arabic by transcribing words instead of learning the Arabic alphabet first. Think about how we learned English back in school. First, you learn your letters, then you form those letters into words, then you learn how to form sentences, and then you learn more about proper syntax and grammar. Taking shortcuts will only slow you down.

3- Learn to use the Arabic dictionary

This task is not as easy as it sounds. In an Arabic dictionary, words are generally organized around three-letter roots. To look up a word, you need to know what the root is and what letter the root starts with – which is not necessarily the first letter in the word. Using the dictionary takes practice, but the sooner you learn it the better. It will make the entire process easier and more enjoyable.

4- Immerse yourself in study and practice

This is a critical step in learning any language, but doubly so when learning Arabic. The best way to learn a new word is to see it, hear it, write it and speak it, so combine those activities as much as you can.

One way for beginners to practice a foreign language is to watch children’s television programs in that language. The vocabulary is simpler, and the educational nature of those programs can be extremely helpful to new students of any age. As you gain proficiency, another tactic is to watch movies in the foreign language with English subtitles on. That way you gain a better “ear” for listening, and the subtitles give you the translation for what you’re hearing. Eventually, you’ll be able to switch off the subtitles and still understanding what is being said.

5- Speak the language

Seeing and hearing isn’t enough, however. It’s critical that you converse in Arabic with other people. It can be difficult to find a conversational partner if you’re not acquainted with native Arabic speakers. Thankfully, modern technology can do a lot to solve that problem.

There are many groups for students to learn Arabic online, and it’s become much easier to find tutors who will coach you and help you in your studies. Take advantage of these resources. The more you practice, the faster you will learn.

6- Never stop learning These steps are just the beginning. It’s easy to begin the journey of learning Arabic but challenging to see it through.

Mastering the Arabic language

will require years of study, but gaining conversation skills can come quickly if you dedicate yourself to the pursuit.