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Arabic Language Thread
03-27-2014, 10:29 PM
Anyone attend any Arabic language schools in the region?
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Arabic Language Thread
03-28-2014, 02:09 AM
I was taught a bit in the Army for about 6 months....
Then when we got there, the Afghan National Army guys told us it was all wrong. The only word we could say correctly was "stop"
That's when I gave up.
The less fucks you give, the more fucks you get.
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Arabic Language Thread
03-28-2014, 02:11 AM
Quote: (03-28-2014 02:09 AM)spalex Wrote:
I was taught a bit in the Army for about 6 months....
Then when we got there, the Afghan National Army guys told us it was all wrong. The only word we could say correctly was "stop"
That's when I gave up.
Don't they speak Pashtun and Dari in Afghanistan, not Arabic? No wonder you were getting things wrong.
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Arabic Language Thread
03-28-2014, 03:20 AM
Quote: (03-28-2014 02:11 AM)Sp5 Wrote:
Quote: (03-28-2014 02:09 AM)spalex Wrote:
I was taught a bit in the Army for about 6 months....
Then when we got there, the Afghan National Army guys told us it was all wrong. The only word we could say correctly was "stop"
That's when I gave up.
Don't they speak Pashtun and Dari in Afghanistan, not Arabic? No wonder you were getting things wrong.
Yeah that is true. Its is pretty mixed on the south west corner with lots of people speaking Pashto. But then a lot of locals speak Brahui, Balochi or Dehwari.
They all understand a lot of Arabic. I guess its like their English.
The less fucks you give, the more fucks you get.
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Arabic Language Thread
03-28-2014, 05:16 AM
They understand a bit of Arabic, because Arabic is the language of the Koran and muslims are supposed to study it in Arabic. However, it will be the classical, literal form of Arabic, rather than the colloquial forms that are spoken in the Arabic world.
This causes problems for those studying the language, because the literal form will not be what you are hearing on the streets. Although, the Gulf region tends to speak a form of Arabic closer to the literal.
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Arabic Language Thread
03-28-2014, 06:59 AM
Quote: (03-28-2014 03:20 AM)spalex Wrote:
Yeah that is true. Its is pretty mixed on the south west corner with lots of people speaking Pashto. But then a lot of locals speak Brahui, Balochi or Dehwari.
They all understand a lot of Arabic. I guess its like their English.
I know they learn Arabic through Koran studies, but that's pretty formal and maybe not like MSA. It's like trying to speak English to a Thai who knows some English - your pronunciation might not be the problem.
I am thinking of going to Cairo to study it, there are a couple of schools that offer 5 hour per day 3 hrs MSA/ 2 hrs Egyptian courses at a reasonable price, and living is cheap in Cairo.
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Arabic Language Thread
03-28-2014, 07:34 AM
Quote: (03-28-2014 06:59 AM)Sp5 Wrote:
Quote: (03-28-2014 03:20 AM)spalex Wrote:
Yeah that is true. Its is pretty mixed on the south west corner with lots of people speaking Pashto. But then a lot of locals speak Brahui, Balochi or Dehwari.
They all understand a lot of Arabic. I guess its like their English.
I know they learn Arabic through Koran studies, but that's pretty formal and maybe not like MSA. It's like trying to speak English to a Thai who knows some English - your pronunciation might not be the problem.
I am thinking of going to Cairo to study it, there are a couple of schools that offer 5 hour per day 3 hrs MSA/ 2 hrs Egyptian courses at a reasonable price, and living is cheap in Cairo.
In my opinion... The best way to Learn a language is to study it full time at some kind of school. Obviously it helps if you are in a country that speaks that same language. But that isn't as important as you'd think. You are probably going to still be talking English to strangers until you have learnt quite a lot.
going 4 hours a night, 2 times a week is shit.
Trying to teach it to yourself is useless because you will never learn the grammar properly.
You can only take it upon yourself to learn once you can already read and understand a lot of the language.
So yeah, studying it in a school in Cairo is probably going to be the fastest way to become a proficient Arabic speaker.
The less fucks you give, the more fucks you get.
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Arabic Language Thread
03-28-2014, 02:07 PM
Haha our army is teaching Arabic to people going to Afghanistan?
"Military Intelligence"
"Well boys we will be invading Venezuela soon, time to study up on our Greek. Please take out Pericles' Funeral Oration..."
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Arabic Language Thread
03-28-2014, 02:10 PM
I would love to learn Arabic, though I know its complicated etc. What would be a good resource to start absolutely basic LEVANTINE ARABIC? I live in an area with many Lebanese people.
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Arabic Language Thread
03-28-2014, 05:40 PM
Would anyone by chance know where I could find a resource that lists the most common Arabic words? Perhaps the 300 to 400 most common. Preferably with an audio element to it.
I have found a few mediocre sites and print/electronic material that showcases the most common words, but they lack an audio component.
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Arabic Language Thread
03-28-2014, 05:48 PM
What Arabic are you learning? It varies from country to country.
You might struggle reading it as there is no grammar. The best way to tackle reading is if you buy the children's books.
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Arabic Language Thread
04-01-2014, 07:44 AM
Quote: (03-28-2014 02:07 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:
Haha our army is teaching Arabic to people going to Afghanistan?
"Military Intelligence"
"Well boys we will be invading Venezuela soon, time to study up on our Greek. Please take out Pericles' Funeral Oration..."
Well, they do use the same alphabet. Which is one of the main reasons for it.
The other reason is that the the worlds militaries use Kuwait as a staging base. Where a lot of soldiers have interactions with local people and they have to tell them to fuck off away from the base.
The less fucks you give, the more fucks you get.
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Arabic Language Thread
04-01-2014, 09:42 PM
Quote: (03-28-2014 05:40 PM)ATTA Wrote:
Would anyone by chance know where I could find a resource that lists the most common Arabic words? Perhaps the 300 to 400 most common. Preferably with an audio element to it.
I have found a few mediocre sites and print/electronic material that showcases the most common words, but they lack an audio component.
A Frequency Dictionary of Arabic:
http://www.amazon.com/Frequency-Dictiona...0415444349
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Arabic Language Thread
04-02-2014, 08:13 PM
As always, I recommend Michel Thomas courses. They have an Egyptian Arabic course, which develops solid knowledge of how to actually use the language in the fastest time possible. All you need from there is vocab, which can be learned from other supplement courses
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Arabic Language Thread
04-03-2014, 01:07 AM
Learnt Arabic for the last 5 yrs and even now I'm still not 100% on it (hardly practice it these days). It's not something you can learn overnight and I highly recommend to take classes/read on net/etc in classical arabic first, since that's the foundation for colloquial arabic they speak in the MidEast. Write/Read with vowels included then slowly remove them once you get the swing of it since ALL newspapers in Arabic have no vowels whatsoever.