learn arabic

standard arabic, with a lebanese teacher. it’s only me and one other guy in the class, which is cool, and everyone says that the lebanese dialect is the most beautiful. i plan to ask her how to say things both ways, i like the soft sound of lebanese.

after a year with this goal, i think the only way to really get started is with a formal structure: a book, a teacher, a regular class. i have a lot of arabic-speaking friends and my pidgin arabic is getting better, but it’s a hodge-podge of dialects and i don’t know the rules, so making new sentences is always messy. i hope my new teacher can straighten me out!

i found a great book but just don’t seem to be capable of sitting down with it. it’s “mastering arabic” by jane wightwick and mahmoud gaafar. comes with 2 cds and starts you at the very beginning, which means that parts of the first chapters have been very easy for me.

even being in morocco and surrounded by this language didn’t kickstart me as much as i would have hoped, maybe because i just spoke french the whole time, but i am feeling more pressure to pick up that book again.

and, i recommend making language exchange friends on skype. there are nice people there, from all sorts of countries, and will often happily agree to tutor you in exchange for some english practice. nothing beats native speakers, and since there’s a chat window you can even type things (or copy and paste) to each other and then discuss them.

now i am wishing i worked in an arabic-language environment instead of a japanese one. not to say i don’t love japanese, but i want to be learning a new skill instead of holding onto an old one. i’ve made friends near work, where i can go on break and exchange greetings in various dialects, but there’s only so much that they can teach me, and it’s haphazard. not so much good for grammatical rules, just set phrases.

has anyone found something simple to help with beginning grammar?

no more egyptian boyfriend, which sadly cuts down on my opportunities to practice. all the more reason to find a real class, and also to dedicate more energy to bothering those long suffering Yemenis who run the newspaper stand outside my work. they’re very kind about my accent, and i teach them a little Japanese in return.

http://www.sarnia-muslims.com/arabicClass/

or

http://i-cias.com/babel/arabic/001.htm

but beware of popups on that second one.

But I haven’t progressed much farther than writing the alphabet, ordering tea in my boyfriend’s shisha cafe, and making stupid jokes. Yelling “you son of a dog!” at a barking dog, for example.

Maybe a real live class would get me farther than just my boyfriend and Pimsleur…