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
No comments:
Post a Comment