Sunday, August 15, 2010
Flash Cards for Arabic Alphabet Letters 22-28
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1klQrWKhcyn8TOgCmcWUHnLcYfwDqEN2nQVxiff-X8jY
Flash Cards for Arabic Alphabet Letters 15-21
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1TkROVpymKn_JO_X7jsnLWtK9zH8GyaeaFu6XU-6t0XQ
Arabic Alphabet Flash Cards for Letters 8-14
For a complete explanation on this memory system please see the discussions for each letter of the alphabet in earlier posts.
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1jWTufeA7QFuxbqhUHgCBHiu5P2c9TFJ84U29cE3HP9Y
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1jWTufeA7QFuxbqhUHgCBHiu5P2c9TFJ84U29cE3HP9Y
Flash Cards for Arabic Alphabet Letters 1-7
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1BBcXV7rmvSmbneSg8e6bZB5AbNyrqkLMJ0yid6nBI94
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Sound & Script Lesson 1 TEST vocab help
In this posting you will find both systematic and imaginative memory aids to help you master the vocabulary from Lesson one. Please post a reply to this post about what is helpful or not as I plan to write study guides for all of the tests for you. Thank you.
Lesson 1 -- 14 testable words
1:2) Fig = تِينْ = tiin = تين
1:6) Montana = مُونْتَانَا = muun-tae-nae = مونتانا
If you find a recording of this word pronounced for us online please post a reply letting us know. The problem with this word for the test is the different teachers are extremely likely to pronounce this word in different ways, just like journalists are notorious for pronouncing the U.S. territory Puerto Rico in different ways on the news since it is a borrowed proper noun from Spanish. Some news anchors pronounce it the English way as "por-da ree-koe" while others try to show off there cosmopolitan sophistication by pronouncing the word as a Spanish word saying "poo-air-toe ree-koe." I would bet a lot of money that they same this is going to happen on your test. Some teachers will pronounce this word like the English "Montana," some as "muun-tae-nae" in proper MSA, and others will create some admixture of the two forms since there are so many syllables in this word to mix up. Our solution? Memorize the spelling based on the correct MSA pronunciation, be ready to recognize the order of the consonants on the test as "M + N + T + N" no matter how mixed up the intervening vowels seem to be. I personally know a native speaker who changes her pronunciation of this word from one conversation with me to the next one, so beware! Loan words are dangerous to listen to closely to, but as a generally rule, you should know that loan words are almost always packed full of long vowels (either elif, ye, or w@w) in every syllable.
a) On a Montana horse ranch, imagine a rancher staples a crescent moon-shaped tag to his horses who all make the horse noise "nay" a lot in the process. That gives us Moon + ta(g) + nay in Montana.
b) With color coding this story can be changed a bit. Imagine that in camping in Montana one night, you look up at the full moon and the Big Dipper cast on the dark blue night sky. Suddenly the Big Digger turns into a giant tin can that scops up the moon. Then it turns over and dumps out two giant light brown acorns into the sky to replace the moon. Weird stories are the most memorable if you let your mind picture them well. Blue is for "uu" and 2 "acorns" is for "ae" and "ae." Now you know you have to fill in the vowel sounds for Montana (Moon + Tin) with "uu" + "ae" + "ae" to get "muun-tae-nae."
1:7) Motel = مُوتِيلْ = muu-tiil = موتيل
The words Arabic for Inn and Hotel on google translate look nothing like this loan word for motel in Arabic, so don't be surprised later in life if you encounter Arabs who don't even know the word motel. It's probably just an exotic import word from English. I could not find it's pronunciation online. If you do, let me know. My wife is a native Arabic speaker, and she pronounces this word according to the expected rules as "muu-tiil" but if we find any other examples online it would be good to know. I expect it will be pronounced many different ways by different teachers on the test since it is a long word (remember the Puerto Rico problem in English).
a) In terms of spelling this word, since it sounds like another loan word from English into Arabic, just remember that you have to pack every long vowel into it that you can in every syllable, because that is the default format for lone words.
b) To color code motel in Arabic, imagine you come to a motel under a blue and white crecent flag. The flag has a blue background and a white moon on it. The roof of the motel is blue, and the walls are white. The blue "uu" sound comes first reading the picture top to bottom and the white background for the "skiing" sound comes second.
1:8) Miami = مِيَامِي = mi-yae-mii = ميامي
This link shows us a perfect example of an Arabic Speaker abandoning the rules of how to correctly pronounce a word according to Arabic spelling rules to try to pronounce the word like it sounds in English (which is funny since it is originally a Spanish word and it sounds different in Spanish):
http://www.forvo.com/word/ميامي/
In this recording you clearly hear the Arabic speaker from Syria saying the long English "i" sound in "ice" which should not appear in this word unless it is spelled with a double "ye". Ask me more about this if you are interested, but in the mean time, you'll need to know how it is spelled for the test, and the pronunciation of the test giver might not help you. Beware of the "Puerto Rico" effect!
a) There are 3 syllables in this word. Spell it with as many long vowels as you can but don't double any letters to try to get a closer approximation of the real sound in English. The reason that loan words in Arabic are spelled with so many long vowels is because it helps them pronounce the word more like English while remaining faithful to Arabic spelling conventions. Rather, the reason for all the long vowels is because without them, many Arabic Speakers wouldn't know how to pronounce a new lone word at all (correctly or incorrectly) since all the short vowels have to be known for every word by memory.
b) To color code this loan word for perfect memory of the spelling we need white for "ski," brown for "acorn," and white again for "skiing" to get "mi-yae-mii." Noticing that Miami is a multiracial city of mostly white and brown people gives us a good hint.
1:9) Mile = مِيل = miil = ميل
This guy from Syrian who authored this next pronunciation link makes me happy because he pronounces this loan word from English according to proper Arabic spelling rules:
http://www.forvo.com/word/ميل#ar
a) The spelling of this word as a loan word is entire rule based. It's one syllable, and you add the closest long vowel sound you can to match the English spelling. Our letter "i" is translated as k@sRa and/or ye. Ye is the long vowel so throw it in between the "m" and the "l" sounds and you get "miil." As another toying with the memory though, you could also imagine an eel growing a mile long. Some catches it and sells it to a sushi mill for yellow eel sushi. What a lot of sushi!
b) To color code this crazy story imagine the workers wrap the mile long eel in white sticky rice before chopping it up.
1:10) Milan = مِيلاَنُو = mii-lae-nuu = ميلانو
Why we are doing lone words from Italian now is quite the mystery. On top of that the spelling seems debatable. On google translate Milan translated into Arabic is not spelled with the "w@w" at the end that we see here in Sound & Script. Nevertheless, onward with what the test requires the students to learn! But sorry, there is of course no pronunciation online of this Italian loan word--memorize it according to the rules of MSA pronunciation and spelling and then focus on the consonants when you hear the test givers pronounce this word as they are likely to do strange things to the vowels mixing various perceptions of English, Italian and Arabic pronunciation all jumbled together.
a) I hope you've heard of this city in Italy. If you don't even know this word in English, you could observe jokingly, that this word is a million miles away from the vocabulary you would like to know! And it kind of sounds like the word "million" so it works. But be careful since the word million is also on the test and it might have be chosen just to trick you! Excuse me--I mean to test your detailed accuracy. For the test, remember that this word doesn't sound sound as close to million as the word million does. Million in Arabic and English only 2 syllable (mIl-yuun). This word for Milan has 3 syllables.
b) To color code this word remember is has all 3 long vowels which we'll put in order as white, brown, and blue. Imagine a big barren mountain behind the city of Milan (which is in fact close to the Alps). Picture in your mind white snow covering the top of the mountian, then under that you see a band of brown dirt, and then at the bottom you see a blue lake. White for skiing, brown for acorns, and blue for blue. That gives us the order of the vowels, ii + ae + uu in the word mii-lae-nuu, which again is a million miles away from the words you want to be memorizing as your first words in Arabic.
1:11) NATO = نَاتُو = nae-tuu = ناتو
Be ready for strange pronunciation of this word in Arabic too. It's not only a loan word, it's a loan acronym! I bet you'll also eventually have to learn the real translation of NATO that actually translates the words North Atlantic Treaty Organization into 4 real Arabic words. That would make more sense. But in the mean time, let's memorize the correct pronunciation as "nae-tuu."
a) Since it's a lone word, expect two long vowels for the two syllables. The closest thing you have to an "O" in the three longs vowels, ye, elif, and w@w is w@w.
b) If I wanted to color code this I'd use brown (acorn) and blue, but why bother, it's a really easy word.
1:12a) He slept = نَامَ = nae-ma = نام
1:12b) She slept = نَامَت = nae-m@t = نامت
No pronunciation online.
a) to be continued...
Approaching the Vocab Systematically with Consistent Pronunciation Rules:
Why are the words "Berries" and "Fig" your first two words, you might wonder? Do you really need these two words for their meaning? No, of course you don't need to know these two words for their meanings as your first two words in Arabic, but you do need their phonetic examples for how long vowels are pronounced differently not only in the DURATION of the vowel sound (ski verses skiing, which is hard for English speakers to hear) but also in the QUALITY of the vowel sound (ski verse it, which is easy for us to hear). These two words are both perfect one syllable words showing you the effects of the long vowel letters "w@w" and "ye" in a way that is easy for the English native speaker to hear. If you haven't checked out my rules on Arabic vowel pronunciation yet to better understand and master this, please do so. You will find these rules summarized in the previous posting at:
In memorizing language vocabulary you should always try to memorize as little as possible about a word as a UNIQUE feature of just the one word you are working on. Being systematic means you look for broad patterns that you can apply to many words as a single rule that can take care of much of the work for you. For example, if you were learning English as a second language instead of Arabic, you could memorize that out of all the different sounds the letter "a" can make in English, the final sound in the word Virginia is an "a" sound like in the first sounds in the words "above" and "up." And you could memorize later that the final sound in "Montana" is "a" like in "above" and "up" again. And then later you could do the same for "Alabama." Maybe sometimes you get confused though and remember the pronunciation and use a different "a" sound like the sound in for "a" in "apple." However, if you find a system, a rule, a pattern in all of these words, you eliminated a vast amount of work for yourself. Because guess what, nearly all long words in English ending in the letter "a" are pronounced with the "a" sound that sounds like the "a" in "above" or "up." It is technically called the schwa sound. Won't that make it a lot easier to learn how to pronounce the words Virginia, Carolina, Florida, California, Montana, and all the other states ending in the letter "a" when you learn that rule? Absolutely.
Now guess what, this exact same rule works in Arabic for the letter "f@tHa" which is roughly equivalent to the English letter "a" in the range of sounds it covers (although it also includes a little bit of the English "e" sound as well). Whenever f@tHa comes at the end of a word it will be pronounced like the vowel sound in the word "up." If you know that rule, you'll never mispronounce the f@tHa (line-shaped diacritic on top of a consonant) at the end of a word in Arabic. All the other rules on the chart in the last post tell you all of the rest of the rules for vowels in Arabic. Now on to the rest of the memorization project.
Time to Get Crazy Imaginative:
(because Crazy Stories are Easier to Remember than Dots and Lines)
Format: Number on the test list, English, Arabic with diacritics, transliteration, Arabic without diacritics, audio of native Arabic speaker's pronunciation, simple crazy memory story, color coded memory story.
1:1) Berries = تُوتْ = tuut = توت
Hear the word pronounced in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at:
a) My grandfather used to tell me an old rhyme about beans, but for our word, we should think of eating a bowl of berries mixed with beans, and the rhyme will be all the more true. As Grandpa said, "The more you eat, the more you TOOT, the more you TOOT the better you feel, and then you're ready for another meal!" Get it? Berries are tuut in Arabic. Do you want to remember to spell it with a long vowel? Imagining tooting for a long time after eating a bowl of berries mixed with beans.
b) If you've learned my color coding system for the vowels, you'll think of "uu" as blue (from blue ooz) and you'll know it has to be long because it is a closed syllable. With that in mind as a set of systematic rules, I could imagine a girl on the beach going virtually topless wearing nothing but two big round BLUE-BERRY stickers overlapping on one TiT. The one berry sticker covered tit tells me the consonants in berries are " t + t " while the blue color tells me in my rules system I'm dealing with the "blue ooze" or "blues" sound, either a DAmma or a DAmma with a w@w in Arabic. Since it is a closed syllable, I know it has to be a DAmma and a w@w giving me the transliterated "tuut."
1:2) Fig = تِينْ = tiin = تين
b) The long ii sound in white in my color coding system, so I look at just the consonants " t + n " for my second story. I imagine getting lost on a snowy white plane in the wilderness and starving. Then I stubble upon a cabin with noting but a giant two gallon tin can in it. I open it and find a giant fig preserved in syrup. Any other fruit would have frozen solid in the snow, I think to myself, but the fig, with so much sticky sugar in it and so little water doesn't freeze easily at all. After eating some of the giant fig, I find a map and a compass and realize I'm not far from base. I'm saved! I get back on my cross country skis heading in the right direction with my compass now. Fig is tiin because I found it in a tin is the white snow. I know it is written with a long vowel because it is a closed syllable. If it wasn't written with a long vowel the sound would be a short "I" sound like in "Igloo" and I had no warm yellow light in this story like I think of with my Igloo.
1:3) Money = مَالْ = m@@l = مال
Hear the word pronounced in the UAE at:
a) If your instructor slips out of MSA into a more dialectic accent, you might hear this word pronounced as mAAl as in a shopping mall (from an Iraqi perhaps) or as mael like in mail you pick up at the post office (from a North African perhaps), but the true RULE BASED MSA pronunciation of this word is m@@l with the "a" sound like the "a" in "apple." So on with the crazy stories now!
Imagine you go to the mall and discover that all the stores are selling nothing except apples (to remind you of the correct "a" sound). The Apple computer store is selling only Macintosh Apples of course, while strangely enough the Banana Republic is selling only Apple Sauce. At the movie theater, all the movies showing are about the Big Apple. This is ridiculous you think, "I'm taking my money and going home." However, just to make sure you still have all of your money, you take it out and look at it. To your horror, you see that all the pictures of the presidents have been replaced with two apples stacked on top of each other! You turn over the money and on the back you see a picture of the Apple Mall. What is happening! When you wake up from the is nightmare you member that "m@@l" is money. The money had pictures of two apples stacked up because it is a long vowel with an elif.
b) @ is for apple which is red. So I imagine I get two mysterious red envelopes in the mail. I open then to discover that they are full of money! Money in Mail tells me the word for money in Arabic has " m + l ". The two red envelopes tell me I need a long @@ sound. So miim + elif = l@m = money.
1:4) May = مَايُو = mae-yuu = مايو
Hear this word pronounced correctly in MSA by an Eygption at:
Also note, you can hear a different dialectic (or incorrect MSA) pronunciation from the UAE at the same link--be aware of these possible vowel mutations as they might throw you on the test.
a) Imagine your priest or clergy person blesses you as you enter DLI. You kneel as he puts his hand on your head and says, "May you graduate in May." "Mae-yuu" (pronounced just like "may you") is May in Arabic.
b) To color code this imagine that the clergy person blessing you is brown skinned and wearing a brown robe (because "a" in a brown "acorn" makes the ae sound with elif in an open Arabic syllable), while you are kneeling in the water in the cold blue ocean at the beach in Monterey in a blue shirt and blue shorts. You're skin is turning blue because you are so cold. All this blue in the second syllable (yuu) tells you it's a long "w@w" because of the "blue ooze and the blues" remind you of blue for the "uu" sound.
1:5) Million = مِليْوُن = mIl-yuun = مليون
Hear this word pronounced by someone from the UAE at:
http://www.forvo.com/word/مليون#ar
Note, the pronunciation in this recording is correct in the 1st syllable using the "I" vowel sound in "Igloo," but then in the 2nd syllable, the vowel in the "-yuun" sounds more like an "o" as it "goats" rather than the "uu" as in "blue ooze." It should sound like "uu" in "blue ooze" according to the rules; however, this "o" from "goats" sound seems to be a common dialectic effect on the DAmma and w@w from the more eastern regions of the Arabic speaking world.
a) Imagine you win a million dollars at casino. but then when you try to pick up the brief case you discover it is glued to the table. When you try to open it to take the money out you find it is glued shut. The double glue reminds us of the DAmma and w@w in the word that make it sound slightly different from the English pronunciation of the word which in turn remind us of the proper spelling for the test.
b) To color code this story, imagine it all takes place in front of the Blue Lagoon and the Blue Lagoon casino, and the they suit case is blue. (If I had wanted to encode the "I" part of the word from "Igloo" I would have used some yellow, but that part sounds just like English, so I ignore it as my default English spelling of the first syllable is sufficient.)
Hear this word pronounced by someone from the UAE at:
http://www.forvo.com/word/مليون#ar
Note, the pronunciation in this recording is correct in the 1st syllable using the "I" vowel sound in "Igloo," but then in the 2nd syllable, the vowel in the "-yuun" sounds more like an "o" as it "goats" rather than the "uu" as in "blue ooze." It should sound like "uu" in "blue ooze" according to the rules; however, this "o" from "goats" sound seems to be a common dialectic effect on the DAmma and w@w from the more eastern regions of the Arabic speaking world.
a) Imagine you win a million dollars at casino. but then when you try to pick up the brief case you discover it is glued to the table. When you try to open it to take the money out you find it is glued shut. The double glue reminds us of the DAmma and w@w in the word that make it sound slightly different from the English pronunciation of the word which in turn remind us of the proper spelling for the test.
b) To color code this story, imagine it all takes place in front of the Blue Lagoon and the Blue Lagoon casino, and the they suit case is blue. (If I had wanted to encode the "I" part of the word from "Igloo" I would have used some yellow, but that part sounds just like English, so I ignore it as my default English spelling of the first syllable is sufficient.)
1:6) Montana = مُونْتَانَا = muun-tae-nae = مونتانا
If you find a recording of this word pronounced for us online please post a reply letting us know. The problem with this word for the test is the different teachers are extremely likely to pronounce this word in different ways, just like journalists are notorious for pronouncing the U.S. territory Puerto Rico in different ways on the news since it is a borrowed proper noun from Spanish. Some news anchors pronounce it the English way as "por-da ree-koe" while others try to show off there cosmopolitan sophistication by pronouncing the word as a Spanish word saying "poo-air-toe ree-koe." I would bet a lot of money that they same this is going to happen on your test. Some teachers will pronounce this word like the English "Montana," some as "muun-tae-nae" in proper MSA, and others will create some admixture of the two forms since there are so many syllables in this word to mix up. Our solution? Memorize the spelling based on the correct MSA pronunciation, be ready to recognize the order of the consonants on the test as "M + N + T + N" no matter how mixed up the intervening vowels seem to be. I personally know a native speaker who changes her pronunciation of this word from one conversation with me to the next one, so beware! Loan words are dangerous to listen to closely to, but as a generally rule, you should know that loan words are almost always packed full of long vowels (either elif, ye, or w@w) in every syllable.
a) On a Montana horse ranch, imagine a rancher staples a crescent moon-shaped tag to his horses who all make the horse noise "nay" a lot in the process. That gives us Moon + ta(g) + nay in Montana.
b) With color coding this story can be changed a bit. Imagine that in camping in Montana one night, you look up at the full moon and the Big Dipper cast on the dark blue night sky. Suddenly the Big Digger turns into a giant tin can that scops up the moon. Then it turns over and dumps out two giant light brown acorns into the sky to replace the moon. Weird stories are the most memorable if you let your mind picture them well. Blue is for "uu" and 2 "acorns" is for "ae" and "ae." Now you know you have to fill in the vowel sounds for Montana (Moon + Tin) with "uu" + "ae" + "ae" to get "muun-tae-nae."
1:7) Motel = مُوتِيلْ = muu-tiil = موتيل
The words Arabic for Inn and Hotel on google translate look nothing like this loan word for motel in Arabic, so don't be surprised later in life if you encounter Arabs who don't even know the word motel. It's probably just an exotic import word from English. I could not find it's pronunciation online. If you do, let me know. My wife is a native Arabic speaker, and she pronounces this word according to the expected rules as "muu-tiil" but if we find any other examples online it would be good to know. I expect it will be pronounced many different ways by different teachers on the test since it is a long word (remember the Puerto Rico problem in English).
a) In terms of spelling this word, since it sounds like another loan word from English into Arabic, just remember that you have to pack every long vowel into it that you can in every syllable, because that is the default format for lone words.
b) To color code motel in Arabic, imagine you come to a motel under a blue and white crecent flag. The flag has a blue background and a white moon on it. The roof of the motel is blue, and the walls are white. The blue "uu" sound comes first reading the picture top to bottom and the white background for the "skiing" sound comes second.
1:8) Miami = مِيَامِي = mi-yae-mii = ميامي
This link shows us a perfect example of an Arabic Speaker abandoning the rules of how to correctly pronounce a word according to Arabic spelling rules to try to pronounce the word like it sounds in English (which is funny since it is originally a Spanish word and it sounds different in Spanish):
http://www.forvo.com/word/ميامي/
In this recording you clearly hear the Arabic speaker from Syria saying the long English "i" sound in "ice" which should not appear in this word unless it is spelled with a double "ye". Ask me more about this if you are interested, but in the mean time, you'll need to know how it is spelled for the test, and the pronunciation of the test giver might not help you. Beware of the "Puerto Rico" effect!
a) There are 3 syllables in this word. Spell it with as many long vowels as you can but don't double any letters to try to get a closer approximation of the real sound in English. The reason that loan words in Arabic are spelled with so many long vowels is because it helps them pronounce the word more like English while remaining faithful to Arabic spelling conventions. Rather, the reason for all the long vowels is because without them, many Arabic Speakers wouldn't know how to pronounce a new lone word at all (correctly or incorrectly) since all the short vowels have to be known for every word by memory.
b) To color code this loan word for perfect memory of the spelling we need white for "ski," brown for "acorn," and white again for "skiing" to get "mi-yae-mii." Noticing that Miami is a multiracial city of mostly white and brown people gives us a good hint.
1:9) Mile = مِيل = miil = ميل
This guy from Syrian who authored this next pronunciation link makes me happy because he pronounces this loan word from English according to proper Arabic spelling rules:
http://www.forvo.com/word/ميل#ar
a) The spelling of this word as a loan word is entire rule based. It's one syllable, and you add the closest long vowel sound you can to match the English spelling. Our letter "i" is translated as k@sRa and/or ye. Ye is the long vowel so throw it in between the "m" and the "l" sounds and you get "miil." As another toying with the memory though, you could also imagine an eel growing a mile long. Some catches it and sells it to a sushi mill for yellow eel sushi. What a lot of sushi!
b) To color code this crazy story imagine the workers wrap the mile long eel in white sticky rice before chopping it up.
1:10) Milan = مِيلاَنُو = mii-lae-nuu = ميلانو
Why we are doing lone words from Italian now is quite the mystery. On top of that the spelling seems debatable. On google translate Milan translated into Arabic is not spelled with the "w@w" at the end that we see here in Sound & Script. Nevertheless, onward with what the test requires the students to learn! But sorry, there is of course no pronunciation online of this Italian loan word--memorize it according to the rules of MSA pronunciation and spelling and then focus on the consonants when you hear the test givers pronounce this word as they are likely to do strange things to the vowels mixing various perceptions of English, Italian and Arabic pronunciation all jumbled together.
a) I hope you've heard of this city in Italy. If you don't even know this word in English, you could observe jokingly, that this word is a million miles away from the vocabulary you would like to know! And it kind of sounds like the word "million" so it works. But be careful since the word million is also on the test and it might have be chosen just to trick you! Excuse me--I mean to test your detailed accuracy. For the test, remember that this word doesn't sound sound as close to million as the word million does. Million in Arabic and English only 2 syllable (mIl-yuun). This word for Milan has 3 syllables.
b) To color code this word remember is has all 3 long vowels which we'll put in order as white, brown, and blue. Imagine a big barren mountain behind the city of Milan (which is in fact close to the Alps). Picture in your mind white snow covering the top of the mountian, then under that you see a band of brown dirt, and then at the bottom you see a blue lake. White for skiing, brown for acorns, and blue for blue. That gives us the order of the vowels, ii + ae + uu in the word mii-lae-nuu, which again is a million miles away from the words you want to be memorizing as your first words in Arabic.
1:11) NATO = نَاتُو = nae-tuu = ناتو
Be ready for strange pronunciation of this word in Arabic too. It's not only a loan word, it's a loan acronym! I bet you'll also eventually have to learn the real translation of NATO that actually translates the words North Atlantic Treaty Organization into 4 real Arabic words. That would make more sense. But in the mean time, let's memorize the correct pronunciation as "nae-tuu."
a) Since it's a lone word, expect two long vowels for the two syllables. The closest thing you have to an "O" in the three longs vowels, ye, elif, and w@w is w@w.
b) If I wanted to color code this I'd use brown (acorn) and blue, but why bother, it's a really easy word.
1:12a) He slept = نَامَ = nae-ma = نام
1:12b) She slept = نَامَت = nae-m@t = نامت
No pronunciation online.
a) to be continued...
The Chart with all the Rules for Arabic Vowels
Mastering the Arabic Vowel System
It is important to learn the rules regarding vowel pronunciation in Modern Standard Arabic even before fully mastering the Arabic alphabet. This is because these rules effect how we should transliterate and pronounce the names of the letters in the alphabet, and then on from there, to how we should pronounce every other syllable, word and phrase that we read. The fixed and consistent rules governing pronunciation of the vowel sounds in Modern Standard Arabic are foundational to understanding all of the other rules in Arabic that follow (including the pronunciation of consonants, the conjugation of verbs, and the vast derivations into scores of different words built from common tri-consonantal roots). Mastering foundational rules will make mastery of the language much easier. Rules organize data into rapidly comprehensible wholes that are much easier to assimilate than an endless series of isolated and disjointed phonetic phenomena. Hence we begin with an in depth study of the vowels.
The three punctuated (a.k.a. short) vowels K@sRa, f@tHa, and DAmma, and the three lengthening (a.k.a. long) vowels ye, elif, and w@w render a total of 18 different different articulations through their diverse combinations and placements within words. These 18 articulations consist of 13 distinct simple vowel articulations, one silent vowel situation (which is arguably incorrect but frequently encountered at the very end of utterances), and 4 diphthongs (a diphthong is where two different vowel sounds are combined so that the mouth slides from one position to another to form a special fused vowel sound). In Arabic script, all of these sounds revolve around the the literal meanings of the names of the punctuated vowel sounds--K@sRa literally means cracked (as when the mouth is slightly cracked open in a smile), f@tHa literally means open (as when the jaw is dropped and the mouth is wide open), and DAmma literally means rounded (as when the jaw is raised, the lips are rounded, and the tongue is pulled back toward the throat).
Organizing our mental imaging of these 18 different articulations around these three fundamental nexi will make mastery and memorization of these sounds easier. The chart below can be superimposed through the eye of imagination on the silhouette of a person's left-side facial profile. The two dimensions of the chart show the up-down movement of the jaw and the front to back moment of the tongue that accompanies the rounding of the lips. Arabic syllable equations are written right to left with three dots signifying that the word has additional syllables either before or after the syllable exemplified. The empty box represents any Arabic consonant either Dark/Emphatic or Light/Non-Emphatic because you could write any letter in the empty box. The symbol for the number 4 in Arabic "٤" represents any Dark/Emphatic consonant because it looks like the letter "E" for Emphatic, while the number 8 in Arabic ۸ represents any Light/Non-Emphatic consonant because it looks a little like a lower case cursive "n" for non-emphatic. Using these conventions the chart below gives us the 13 fundamental vowel sounds with the rules for how and when to pronounce them as well as how to transcribe them for easy recognition:
| k@sRa = raised jaw, cracked slightly, tongue forward; lengthened when followed by the letter "ye". | DAmma = raised jaw, rounded lips, tongue back; lengthened when followed by the letter "w@w". | |
ii (as in skiing) = ...ﹳِي or...ﹳِيﹳْ i (as in ski) = ...ِ۸ (open/light syllable) I (as in Igloo) = ...ﹳِﹳْ or...ِ٤ Imagine smiling and skiing down a powdery hill under a grey sky and then putting your skis on the side of an inviting igloo that is full of warm yellow candle light. | uu (as in blue ooze) = ...ﹳُوor...ﹳُوﹳْ u (as in blues) = ...ﹳُ (all open syllables) U (as in put and book) = ...ﹳُﹳْ Imagine blue ooze coming out of a saxophone when you try to play some blues on it, and then you put it down and pick up a purple book instead. | |
| f@tha = jaw opened, tongue pulled back; lengthened by the letter "elif" shown below as "l". e (as in cheddar) = ...َ۸ (open/light syllable) ae (as in acorn) = ...lَ۸ (open/light syllable) @ (as in apple) = ... ۸َ۸ (closed/light syllable) @@ (as in apple) = ...۸lَ۸ (closed/light syllable) a (as in red onion) = ﷽َ ...(any final open syllable) A (as in olive) = ...َ٤(Dark anywhere in syllable) A (as in jaw olive) = ...lَ٤(Dido, but lengthened) Imagine eating olives first as an appetizer, then an onion salad, then apple pie with diced acorns on top, then a grilled cheddar cheese sandwich. The waiter accidentally gave you dessert before your main course, but you ate it. |
In summary, the three most important factors effecting vowel pronunciation are: (1) Dark consonants lower the jaw for c@sra and f@tha. (2) Closed syllables (which end in a consonant) lower the jaw for all vowels. (3) The final vowel at the end of a complete utterance (the end of both the word and phrase) is optionally left silent by the speaker if it is c@sra or DAmma, and it is optionally either a schwa "a" (as in the word "above) or silent if it is a f@tHa.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Sound & Script Lesson 1
'@hl@n we sel@n, 'ASdiQAA'ii (translated hello friends, but literally "my people and easy, my friends"):
Reviewing Lesson 1 of Sound & Script, I noticed a number of things I'd like to point out:
(FIRST) The discussion of the short vowels appears inconsistent but actually it is simply incomplete. One page 4, we are told "short vowels equate to the English short vowels /E/ as in set, /I/ as in hit, and /U/ as in put" (Capital letters substituted for IPA symbols). Then on page 8, we are asked to "remember that the three short vowels are [equivalent to] but, put, and hit. What just happened there you might have wondered. The vowel sounds in "but" and "set" are totally different sounds in English!
Actually, what you need to know is that the three short vowel sounds (often seen in combination with the long vowel sounds) are pronounced in different ways depending on the context. In short, here is the list:
The i-and-y like sound family produced by the diacritic: k@sRa (lengthened by ye)
1) ii as in "skiing"
2) i as in "ski"
3) I as in "Igloo"
The a-and-e-like sound family produced by the diacritic: f@tHa (lengthened by elif)
1) e as in "cheddar"
2) ae as in "acorn" (but pronounced more like the Spanish "e" sound)
3) @ as in "@pple" (or @t which is why I use the @ symbol for it)
4) @@ as in "@pple" (but longer in duration, which is why I double the letter)
5) a as in "onion" (or above)
6) A as in "olive" (or autumn)
7) AA as in "olive" (but longer in duration)
The u-and-w-like sound family produced by the diacritic: DAmma (lengthened by w@w)
1) uu as in "blue ooze" (doubled sound by using "...ue + oo...")
2) u as in "blues"
3) U as in "put" or "book"
For the complete set of rules that dictate when all of these different vowel sounds are used, go to the chart with the baby pictures on this webpage: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfcrjjqs_99hfskg4dr
On that same webpage you will also find memory stories for memorizing each one of the Arabic letters.
(SECOND) The focus of the chapter on differentiating long lengthened vowel sounds from short punctuated vowel sounds seems like a very difficult place for native English speakers to begin, however, if one is going to begin at this point, it is important to know a few things:
1) First, the three so-called "long" or lengthened vowel sounds, ye, elif, and w@w never occur as vowel sounds at all unless they follow one of the short punctuated vowel sounds, k@sRa, f@tHa, or DAmma. This is not shown in Sound and Script because the book doesn't write the diacritics most of the time, but in reality, if these letters don't follow vowels they are the consonants y, (the glottal stop) ', and w.
2) Second, to recognize these sounds when you hear them, it is going to be much easier for you as a native English speaker to distinguish the quality of the sound instead of trying to determine the length of the sound. By that I mean it is easy for the English speaker to hear the difference between the particular "i" sounds in the words "Igloo" and in "skiing" rather than trying to always recognize the difference in duration of a particular "i" sound, as in the words "ski" and "skiing." Based on that understanding of the native English speakers "ear" for sounds, we can establish some helpful rules to get you through to the correct answer (long vowel or short vowel) most of the time. Here are the rules:
I) if you ever hear the sounds "I" as in Igloo, "E" as in chedder, or "U" as in book, guaranteed, 100% of the time, across dialects, this will always mean you are hearing a short punctuated vowel using ONLY the diacritic, and never the long vowel.
II) if you ever hear the sound "ae" as in acorn, this should always mean you are hearing a long lengthened vowel sound that includes the elif after the f@tHa (reminder, the f@tHa isn't noted though in Sound & Script before elif's as the want to you get use to reading words without diacritics ASAP for better or for worse). However, the native dialect of the speaker may obscure this rule sometimes even when people are trying to speak in Modern Standard Arabic.
III) if you hear an "i/ii" sound (ski or skiing), or an "u/uu" sound (blue ooze, or blues), you don't have to guess whether is was lengthened or short if you heard it inside of a closed syllable (i.e. as syllable that ends in a consonant; for example, "me" is open, "met" is closed). Guaranteed, 100% of the time, you heard a long lengthened sound that must include "ye" or "w@w" the so-called long vowels if you hear anything that sounds like "i" (ski) or "u" (blues) inside of a closed syllable ending with a consonant.
Those rules will cover you the majority of the time when trying to distinguish between long/lengthened and short/punctuated vowel sounds. However, to really master this distinction 100% of the time you will eventually have know about Mora theory to arrive at perfection. I don't advise that you try to master this too soon because this work really needs to be done on the whole sentence level which is not where we start, but just to give you a preview of what is to come, here's what you'll need to know about Mora theory. Basically, this linguistics theory states that the "heaviest" syllable in an Arabic word carries the stress or accent. For example, in the word "computer" in English, the middle syllable "pu" is stressed. In English one kind of has to learn where the stress in a word is by rote memorization of ever word. The stressed syllable does not always have the greatest number of sounds nor does it occur in a consistent place within a word. In Arabic though, stress in a word falls on the part of the word that has the biggest pill of sounds and this is usually a part of the word that has the lengthened vowel because you are adding the long vowel to the short vowel (which counts as two sounds, not as one). Mora theory states that the heaviest syllable, i.e. the syllable with more letters and sounds than other syllables in the word, carries the stress in Arabic. Knowing this will help you identify the long vowels "elif," "ye," and "w@w" in words where the other rules above don't already tell you. I hope to write more about this topic soon, but in the mean time, if you'd like to learn about heavy and light syllables check out the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_(linguistics)
www.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/syll.pdf
(FINALLY) It is important to note that the 1st chapter in Sound & Script uses a lot of lone words in Arabic from English which has an upside and a downside. The upside is that it helps the English speaker read using some Arabic letters while recognizing familiar sounding words. The downsides are that the way these lone words are spelled in Arabic is debatable (is Utah spelled with a light or dark letter "t" in Arabic since there are two letter "t"s in Arabic?). The text book seems to avoid using dark/emphatic consonants to transliterate English words into Arabic, but this is problematic because consonant sounds effect the sounds of neighboring vowels. It is not possible to say the "ah" sound in Utah in Arabic without a dark/emphatic "T". The other downside of working on lots of lone words (especially proper nouns) is that if there are any exceptions to the rules in how Arabic is pronounced those exceptions will be present in the loan words from English because Arabic speakers are trying to pronounce the loan words more like the original in English rather than in a natural sounding way in Arabic. "Mama" in Arabic is a very strange sounding word because that kind of "a" sound is not usually present with an "m" sound. The original Arabic word for mother is pronounced 'Um (glottal stop + "U" as in book + "m").
TOP PRIORITY
Personally, it seems the most important thing to focus on in the beginning of one's study of Arabic is the correct pronunciation of the vowels (focusing first on distinguishing their range of sounds, as in "e" vs. "ae", and then a little bit, but not too much, on their duration, as in "i" vs. "ii"). The vowels will tell you almost everything you need to know about the consonants they are connected to in terms of whether they are light/non-emphatic or dark/emphatic, and later they will dictate a great deal of the grammar rules you will learn.
After that, memorize the alphabet as soon as possible paying close attention to which 18 consonants are light/non-emphatic ones and which 10 consonants are dark/emphatic ones. All the letters of the alphabet are covered extensively in the google docs link for the vowel chart I gave you above. Just keep reading past the chart for the vowels to get to the analysis of and memorization help for all of the consonants.
Reviewing Lesson 1 of Sound & Script, I noticed a number of things I'd like to point out:
(FIRST) The discussion of the short vowels appears inconsistent but actually it is simply incomplete. One page 4, we are told "short vowels equate to the English short vowels /E/ as in set, /I/ as in hit, and /U/ as in put" (Capital letters substituted for IPA symbols). Then on page 8, we are asked to "remember that the three short vowels are [equivalent to] but, put, and hit. What just happened there you might have wondered. The vowel sounds in "but" and "set" are totally different sounds in English!
Actually, what you need to know is that the three short vowel sounds (often seen in combination with the long vowel sounds) are pronounced in different ways depending on the context. In short, here is the list:
The i-and-y like sound family produced by the diacritic: k@sRa (lengthened by ye)
1) ii as in "skiing"
2) i as in "ski"
3) I as in "Igloo"
The a-and-e-like sound family produced by the diacritic: f@tHa (lengthened by elif)
1) e as in "cheddar"
2) ae as in "acorn" (but pronounced more like the Spanish "e" sound)
3) @ as in "@pple" (or @t which is why I use the @ symbol for it)
4) @@ as in "@pple" (but longer in duration, which is why I double the letter)
5) a as in "onion" (or above)
6) A as in "olive" (or autumn)
7) AA as in "olive" (but longer in duration)
The u-and-w-like sound family produced by the diacritic: DAmma (lengthened by w@w)
1) uu as in "blue ooze" (doubled sound by using "...ue + oo...")
2) u as in "blues"
3) U as in "put" or "book"
For the complete set of rules that dictate when all of these different vowel sounds are used, go to the chart with the baby pictures on this webpage: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfcrjjqs_99hfskg4dr
On that same webpage you will also find memory stories for memorizing each one of the Arabic letters.
(SECOND) The focus of the chapter on differentiating long lengthened vowel sounds from short punctuated vowel sounds seems like a very difficult place for native English speakers to begin, however, if one is going to begin at this point, it is important to know a few things:
1) First, the three so-called "long" or lengthened vowel sounds, ye, elif, and w@w never occur as vowel sounds at all unless they follow one of the short punctuated vowel sounds, k@sRa, f@tHa, or DAmma. This is not shown in Sound and Script because the book doesn't write the diacritics most of the time, but in reality, if these letters don't follow vowels they are the consonants y, (the glottal stop) ', and w.
2) Second, to recognize these sounds when you hear them, it is going to be much easier for you as a native English speaker to distinguish the quality of the sound instead of trying to determine the length of the sound. By that I mean it is easy for the English speaker to hear the difference between the particular "i" sounds in the words "Igloo" and in "skiing" rather than trying to always recognize the difference in duration of a particular "i" sound, as in the words "ski" and "skiing." Based on that understanding of the native English speakers "ear" for sounds, we can establish some helpful rules to get you through to the correct answer (long vowel or short vowel) most of the time. Here are the rules:
I) if you ever hear the sounds "I" as in Igloo, "E" as in chedder, or "U" as in book, guaranteed, 100% of the time, across dialects, this will always mean you are hearing a short punctuated vowel using ONLY the diacritic, and never the long vowel.
II) if you ever hear the sound "ae" as in acorn, this should always mean you are hearing a long lengthened vowel sound that includes the elif after the f@tHa (reminder, the f@tHa isn't noted though in Sound & Script before elif's as the want to you get use to reading words without diacritics ASAP for better or for worse). However, the native dialect of the speaker may obscure this rule sometimes even when people are trying to speak in Modern Standard Arabic.
III) if you hear an "i/ii" sound (ski or skiing), or an "u/uu" sound (blue ooze, or blues), you don't have to guess whether is was lengthened or short if you heard it inside of a closed syllable (i.e. as syllable that ends in a consonant; for example, "me" is open, "met" is closed). Guaranteed, 100% of the time, you heard a long lengthened sound that must include "ye" or "w@w" the so-called long vowels if you hear anything that sounds like "i" (ski) or "u" (blues) inside of a closed syllable ending with a consonant.
Those rules will cover you the majority of the time when trying to distinguish between long/lengthened and short/punctuated vowel sounds. However, to really master this distinction 100% of the time you will eventually have know about Mora theory to arrive at perfection. I don't advise that you try to master this too soon because this work really needs to be done on the whole sentence level which is not where we start, but just to give you a preview of what is to come, here's what you'll need to know about Mora theory. Basically, this linguistics theory states that the "heaviest" syllable in an Arabic word carries the stress or accent. For example, in the word "computer" in English, the middle syllable "pu" is stressed. In English one kind of has to learn where the stress in a word is by rote memorization of ever word. The stressed syllable does not always have the greatest number of sounds nor does it occur in a consistent place within a word. In Arabic though, stress in a word falls on the part of the word that has the biggest pill of sounds and this is usually a part of the word that has the lengthened vowel because you are adding the long vowel to the short vowel (which counts as two sounds, not as one). Mora theory states that the heaviest syllable, i.e. the syllable with more letters and sounds than other syllables in the word, carries the stress in Arabic. Knowing this will help you identify the long vowels "elif," "ye," and "w@w" in words where the other rules above don't already tell you. I hope to write more about this topic soon, but in the mean time, if you'd like to learn about heavy and light syllables check out the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_(linguistics)
www.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/syll.pdf
(FINALLY) It is important to note that the 1st chapter in Sound & Script uses a lot of lone words in Arabic from English which has an upside and a downside. The upside is that it helps the English speaker read using some Arabic letters while recognizing familiar sounding words. The downsides are that the way these lone words are spelled in Arabic is debatable (is Utah spelled with a light or dark letter "t" in Arabic since there are two letter "t"s in Arabic?). The text book seems to avoid using dark/emphatic consonants to transliterate English words into Arabic, but this is problematic because consonant sounds effect the sounds of neighboring vowels. It is not possible to say the "ah" sound in Utah in Arabic without a dark/emphatic "T". The other downside of working on lots of lone words (especially proper nouns) is that if there are any exceptions to the rules in how Arabic is pronounced those exceptions will be present in the loan words from English because Arabic speakers are trying to pronounce the loan words more like the original in English rather than in a natural sounding way in Arabic. "Mama" in Arabic is a very strange sounding word because that kind of "a" sound is not usually present with an "m" sound. The original Arabic word for mother is pronounced 'Um (glottal stop + "U" as in book + "m").
TOP PRIORITY
Personally, it seems the most important thing to focus on in the beginning of one's study of Arabic is the correct pronunciation of the vowels (focusing first on distinguishing their range of sounds, as in "e" vs. "ae", and then a little bit, but not too much, on their duration, as in "i" vs. "ii"). The vowels will tell you almost everything you need to know about the consonants they are connected to in terms of whether they are light/non-emphatic or dark/emphatic, and later they will dictate a great deal of the grammar rules you will learn.
After that, memorize the alphabet as soon as possible paying close attention to which 18 consonants are light/non-emphatic ones and which 10 consonants are dark/emphatic ones. All the letters of the alphabet are covered extensively in the google docs link for the vowel chart I gave you above. Just keep reading past the chart for the vowels to get to the analysis of and memorization help for all of the consonants.
Monday, August 2, 2010
For Students of the Defense Language Institute
mARHAba (welcome),
Learning any new language is hard, but in particular learning Arabic as a native English speaker can be exceptionally challenging. This is because of two reasons. First of all, the Arabic alphabet is written in an entirely different script. Then on top of that, the entire structure of the language is very different from English. Many of the phonetic sounds and rules of grammar in Arabic are very different from the sounds and rules in English. One military contractor who eventually became fluent in Arabic once told me he spent his whole first year of Arabic classes just learning how to use a dictionary in Arabic--and he thought this was an excellent investment of a year's worth of work because dictionaries don't even work the same way in Arabic as they do in English. Yes, they are in alphabetical order, but then on top of that you have to know a lot of exotic grammar to use them because they are based on a complex concept of root words.
In the quest to learn Arabic, there are a lot of pieces for the native English speaker to pull together in the beginning just to have a foundation on which to understand what we are learning in Arabic at each step of our studies. Unfortunately, all of the many diverse Arabic learning materials and textbooks I've reviewed so far leave a lot of gaps in their lessons and present concepts in challenging sequences for the native English speaker. For example, most materials I've seen so far begin by focusing on many of the most difficult sounds in the Arabic language for English Speakers (like long, lengthened vowel sounds and dark, emphatic consonants) before they even teach the basic rules about how the easier sounds familiar to the English speaker work in Arabic (like the variations of pronunciation for the short English-like vowel sounds and the basic structure of a syllable in Arabic).
That's why I've created this blog "Arabic for Poets." Language learning doesn't have to be so grueling if we approach it from another angle--an angle I like to call the poet's perspective. A poet doesn't gloss over the details of sounds and symbols in a language to hammer out a rough choppy approximation of what he or she would like to communicate. A poet digs deep down for the rhythm , rhyme, and reason buried in the structure and rules of a language, and then finding those deep cords of consistency in a language, the poet then weaves a rich tapestry of meaning using all the right words and all the right times. Am I proposing that we write poetry in Arabic? No! Not at all. However, what I am proposing is that we analyse each step in the process of learning Arabic a little more closely to find out what is really going on in this truly fascinating and well constructed language so that we can build a solid pyramid of durable understanding in the language rather than a haphazard house of cards. As I go about the endeavor of learning Arabic with both sides of my brain--both the intensively analytic side and wildly imaginative and creative side--I invite you to share this journey with me.
As a guide, I have a few good things to offer you. I've mastered a second language before as an adult becoming a certified teacher and published author in Spanish. My wife is a native speaker of Arabic and an Arabic professor, and she is continually helping me weed out any errors in my understanding of the language. I have an M.A. in second language education and a strong background in linguistics, and I am particularly skilled in developing creative memory retention systems for adults in the language learning process. Ultimately, I hope to co-author a textbook for Arabic with my wife, but in the mean time, I hope my blog will be of great help to you. I especially dedicate this website to the service men and women of the Defense Language Institute who are studying Arabic intensively right now, and I hope to run along side them in particular as a helpful pace maker and learning coach for those who find my notes useful.
shuukRAn
Sky Coon
Learning any new language is hard, but in particular learning Arabic as a native English speaker can be exceptionally challenging. This is because of two reasons. First of all, the Arabic alphabet is written in an entirely different script. Then on top of that, the entire structure of the language is very different from English. Many of the phonetic sounds and rules of grammar in Arabic are very different from the sounds and rules in English. One military contractor who eventually became fluent in Arabic once told me he spent his whole first year of Arabic classes just learning how to use a dictionary in Arabic--and he thought this was an excellent investment of a year's worth of work because dictionaries don't even work the same way in Arabic as they do in English. Yes, they are in alphabetical order, but then on top of that you have to know a lot of exotic grammar to use them because they are based on a complex concept of root words.
In the quest to learn Arabic, there are a lot of pieces for the native English speaker to pull together in the beginning just to have a foundation on which to understand what we are learning in Arabic at each step of our studies. Unfortunately, all of the many diverse Arabic learning materials and textbooks I've reviewed so far leave a lot of gaps in their lessons and present concepts in challenging sequences for the native English speaker. For example, most materials I've seen so far begin by focusing on many of the most difficult sounds in the Arabic language for English Speakers (like long, lengthened vowel sounds and dark, emphatic consonants) before they even teach the basic rules about how the easier sounds familiar to the English speaker work in Arabic (like the variations of pronunciation for the short English-like vowel sounds and the basic structure of a syllable in Arabic).
That's why I've created this blog "Arabic for Poets." Language learning doesn't have to be so grueling if we approach it from another angle--an angle I like to call the poet's perspective. A poet doesn't gloss over the details of sounds and symbols in a language to hammer out a rough choppy approximation of what he or she would like to communicate. A poet digs deep down for the rhythm , rhyme, and reason buried in the structure and rules of a language, and then finding those deep cords of consistency in a language, the poet then weaves a rich tapestry of meaning using all the right words and all the right times. Am I proposing that we write poetry in Arabic? No! Not at all. However, what I am proposing is that we analyse each step in the process of learning Arabic a little more closely to find out what is really going on in this truly fascinating and well constructed language so that we can build a solid pyramid of durable understanding in the language rather than a haphazard house of cards. As I go about the endeavor of learning Arabic with both sides of my brain--both the intensively analytic side and wildly imaginative and creative side--I invite you to share this journey with me.
As a guide, I have a few good things to offer you. I've mastered a second language before as an adult becoming a certified teacher and published author in Spanish. My wife is a native speaker of Arabic and an Arabic professor, and she is continually helping me weed out any errors in my understanding of the language. I have an M.A. in second language education and a strong background in linguistics, and I am particularly skilled in developing creative memory retention systems for adults in the language learning process. Ultimately, I hope to co-author a textbook for Arabic with my wife, but in the mean time, I hope my blog will be of great help to you. I especially dedicate this website to the service men and women of the Defense Language Institute who are studying Arabic intensively right now, and I hope to run along side them in particular as a helpful pace maker and learning coach for those who find my notes useful.
shuukRAn
Sky Coon
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)