Learn Arabic

Learn Arabic - Learning process

Study Arabic? Who and Why?

April 28, 2015 by
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Arabic class

Interacting with those who study Arabic

Over the course of the past several months I have been interacting with people who want to study Arabic, as well as a number of Arabic teachers.  I began my own journey to study Arabic 25 years ago, and so it is really interesting for me to find out who wants to study Arabic now, and why.

Who wants to study Arabic? What are their motivations?

As an Arabic educator, knowing who wants to study Arabic is a crucial question.  Knowing your audience is a key part of teaching effectively.  And knowing their reasons for wanting to study can make your instruction much more successful.  Motivation not only affects the speed at which a student will learn, but also the subject material that they want to cover, and their ability to take in and hold significant amounts of new language.

This week I was reading a 2006 study by Ghassan HusseinAli, a faculty member at George Mason University, entitled “Who is Studying Arabic and Why? A survey of Arabic Students’ Orientations at a Major University”. The study was from the United States, and from almost 9 years ago, but the results are still widely applicable.

Ghassan Husseinali

 

Photo Credit

Husseinali, Ghassan. “Who is Studying Arabic and Why? A Survey of Arabic Students’ Orientations at a Major University.” Foreign Language Annals 39.3 (2006): 395–412.

The two most interesting parts of Husseinali’s study, for me, were his findings on the different ethnic groups that were studying Arabic, as well as the reasons for studying Arabic.

Continue reading “Study Arabic? Who and Why?”

Egypt - Egyptian Arabic - Learn Arabic - Learning process - Speaking

My Big Fat Arabic Wedding – Milestone 3

April 20, 2015 by 2 Comments
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Arabic wedding

The Arabic Wedding Vows – Matrimonial success, Arabic language fail!

(If you haven’t read Milestones 1 and 2 – “A cup of Tea” and “Signing the Contract”, this post will make more sense once you have read those). And the title of this post comes from the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002).

Learn Arabic through Arabic Weddings

There I was, standing at the front of an Egyptian church in Cairo, about to say my Arabic wedding vows in front of hundreds of people. My about-to-be wife was standing beside me looking gorgeous, rows of smiling faces stretched as far back in the seats as I could see, and I had my Arabic vows memorized. At least, I thought I did…. (you can probably see where this is going…)

——REWIND——

My first milestone was ordering a cup of tea in Arabic. The second big milestone was signing a rental contract. This is the third milestone – my wedding vows. In Arabic. I’m going to get vulnerable in this post and tell you all kinds of details about my personal life! Introduce you to my wife Heidi. And just in case you haven’t figured it out yet, that’s NOT me in the wedding picture above.  Keep reading.

Continue reading “My Big Fat Arabic Wedding – Milestone 3”

Egypt - Egyptian Arabic - Learn Arabic - Vocabulary

Shem El-Nessim شم النسيم

April 14, 2015 by 2 Comments
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Shem El-Nessim

Shem el-Nissim (شم النسيم) is an Egyptian holiday that celebrates the coming of spring each year.  We just got back from our annual Shem el-Nissim trip up to my wife’s family’s beach house on the Suez Canal.  Sunshine, water, an old rowboat, my awesome teenage kids, tons of food, and a generally fun spring atmosphere.  Here’s some Arabic words that came up a lot this weekend (Egyptian Arabic ones marked with a *): Continue reading “Shem El-Nessim شم النسيم”

Cairo - Egypt - Egyptian Arabic - Learn Arabic - Learning process - Speaking - Vocabulary

Learning Arabic – Milestone 2

March 18, 2015 by 1 Comment
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Milestone 2 - the rental contract

Signing the Contract

(If you haven’t read Milestone 1 – A Cup of Tea, this post will make more sense once you have read it).

My first year in Egypt was spent immersing myself in Arabic. I was determined to make the most of what I thought would be a single year here. My plan was to take in as much Arabic language learning as I could in as many ways as possible.

Five days per week, I was in class at the American University in Cairo.The program was intense – five hours a day of instruction.About 3/4 of the class time was spent studying Modern Standard Arabic (فصحى) and 1/4 of the time spent studying Egyptian Colloquial (عامية).The teachers were for the most part good, and some of them were excellent.One of my favorite teachers was Abbas Al-Tonsi, co-author of the famous Al-Kitaab books for Arabic language learning.He revolutionized my thinking about learning vocabulary, even though that was not the main focus of the course I took with him. More on vocabulary in a later post.

In addition to class time, we had 2-3 hours of Arabic homework per night, on average.On top of this, I decided I was going to spend as much time speaking Egyptian Arabic as possible.Learning Arabic was my priority. I was unconventional.I made friends with a fruit-seller on our street named Ibrahim, and sat on a chair next to him for 1-2 hours per day, at least 5 days a week.I would talk with him in Arabic (he spoke no English), as well as with all kinds of customers that came by.It was only after I had been doing this for several months that I learned from other people that in Egyptian society, this was seen as strange.I was not concerned with that!

Fruit Seller
Fruit Seller (credit: Fox News)

So all in all, I was spending something in the range of 8-10 hours/day learning Arabic.Eating, breathing, sleeping… lots of Arabic. Continue reading “Learning Arabic – Milestone 2”

Cairo - Egypt - Learn Arabic

Islamic Cairo – glimpses

March 12, 2015 by
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Andrew at Bab Zuwaila

Islamic Cairo is one of my favorite places in Egypt.  Thousands of students come here each year from around the world, and learning Arabic is one of the things they do.

This is a set of random street shots I took on Wednesday morning in Islamic Cairo.  Of course, I finished my morning off with a Turkish coffee at El-Fishawy coffee shop (not shown in this video). 🙂

Egypt - Egyptian Arabic - Learn Arabic - Learning process

Learning Arabic – Milestone 1

March 9, 2015 by 2 Comments
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Learning Arabic with Egyptian Tea

Learning Arabic in the everyday things

Learning Arabic has been a long journey for me.  As I share resources, tips, and insights on this blog to help people in their own journey to speak, understand, read, and write Arabic, I thought I would share some of my milestones that I passed.

If you are getting to know me, I arrived in Egypt in 1991, on a year abroad from the University of Toronto in Canada.  I was studying in a linguistics program (which later shifted into the Department of Near and Eastern Civilizations, since I overloaded my credits with Arabic courses!) and wanted to learn a “different” language.  My friends were taking years in places like France, Spain, or Germany.  I though through the places in the world that interested me, and decided to study in Egypt.  I’ve been here since.

Thinking back over how I started learning Arabic, I can think of a few milestones in my progress.

New in Egypt

On my first day in Egypt, I went from my apartment to the place I would study:  the American University in Cairo.  I was signed up for a year of learning Arabic in their Arabic Language Institute (now the Department of Arabic Language Instruction).  I walked through some crazy traffic, found my way to Tahrir Square, and eventually discovered the old campus of AUC.

Tahrir Square Continue reading “Learning Arabic – Milestone 1”

Grammar - Learn Arabic - Learning Resources - Listening - Modern Standard Arabic - Reading - Speaking - Writing

Arabic Without Walls Online Course

February 13, 2015 by
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Arabic Without Walls

Arabic Without Walls

This is a full fledged online course in Arabic by the UC Consortium for Language Learning and Teaching that is designed around two textbooks with accompanying DVDs: Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic Sounds and Letters and Al-Kitaab Fii Ta’allum Al-’arabiyya Part 1 by Kristen Brustad, Mahmoud Al-Batal and Abbas Al-Tonsi.  Its program includes sections on: Continue reading “Arabic Without Walls Online Course”

Learn Arabic - Learning process

10 Amusing Approaches to Arabic

February 13, 2015 by
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This is a fun article that gives 10 Amusing Approaches to Arabic learning, by Meredith Cicerchia.

Quick summary:

1.  Write and draw what you see.

2. Immerse yourself in authentic language.

3. Say your ع ‘ayn out-loud. Continue reading “10 Amusing Approaches to Arabic”

Grammar - Learn Arabic - Learning process - Vocabulary

Article: Why learning Arabic is so hard

February 12, 2015 by
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Trying to learn Arabic

Here’s a great article from Slate called “I’m Trying To Learn Arabic.  Why’s it taking so long?” by Robert Lane Greene.

Summary of the article:

1. Arabic script is complicated and hard to learn

2. There are a number of sounds that are hard to pronounce for English speakers Continue reading “Article: Why learning Arabic is so hard”

Egyptian Arabic - Learn Arabic - Learning process - Speaking

Egyptian Arabic: Five Important Things

February 8, 2015 by 2 Comments
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Egyptian Arabic Teacher

At the request of one of my Arabic learning acquaintances on Twitter, أمريكية صعيدية @AmericanSaeedi, I am re-posting here the text of an interview made back in 2003.  The interview is with Dr. David Wilmsen, who was at that time living in Egypt and working at the American University.  Dr. Wilmsen is now, according to my quick google search, at AUB, the American University in Beirut.  You can check out his academia.edu page, or his research publications.

Egyptian Arabic expert Dr. David Wilmsen

The article was originally posted on my old website, egyptianarabic.com.  That site was where we showcased our software Egyptian Arabic Vocab Clinic®, and Modern Standard Arabic Vocab Clinic® and Verb Clinic®.  They are now no longer being distributed, as AUC Press decided to not continue publishing them.

On a side note, AUC Press is a fantastic publisher and puts out some of the best Egyptian Arabic course books, as well as other publications about Egypt.  Check out their website.  I don’t blame them for not continuing with distributing the Vocab Clinic software, as it was on CD-ROM and that medium kind of is a dim memory for most of us now, sort of in the cassette tape zone.  If you used that software or are interested in an Arabic learning course, I am dropping a small hint here:  stay tuned here for some upcoming news about something we are putting together.  Or sign up for my newsletter over on the right sidebar.  That’s all I will say for now.

Here’s the interview: Continue reading “Egyptian Arabic: Five Important Things”