Learning another language...

[Karlos]

I'm currently trying to learn to read another language. It's quite dissimilar from anything I'm familiar with in that:

1) It's plainly written the wrong way round :-P
2) It does have an alphabet but it visually loses any meaning when you see the written form
3) It has the most unprononceable consonants ever devised, most of which sound exactly the same to the untrained ear.

Yep, you've guessed it, it's arabic :-D

I'm not naturally gifted when it comes to any language that doesn't involve curly braces and operators. Just getting used to the script is proving difficult.

Are there any multilingual types here that can offer any tips when embarking on a new language?

-edit-

For those that might be surprised to hear I can't read it already, like many people I've just memorised the chunks I need, along with their meanings. Actually tackling the language itself is an entirely different proposal ;-)

[Karlos]

@GadgetMaster

I remember learning German at school, which was largely OK, what with the latin alphabet and similar grammar. Arabic, OTOH is seemingly as alien as it can get at this point.

I still have those reading materials, which are proving handy. Unfortunately, I really do seem to have a blind spot with seeing the letters in words :-/

Oh, and the letter "ghayn" (the one that looks like a horizontally flipped number 3 with a dot above it) is giving me a sore throat :lol:

-edit-

I wonder if it'll render it:
غ

[Karlos]

GadgetMaster wrote:

I am telling you it all starts to become clearer once you see past the squiggles :-D

Said the pharmacist said as she took the prescription slip...

[Karlos]

Is it the letter in the word "ghayril" from Al Fatiha?

[Karlos]

Now that's exactly the sort of pronunciation guide I need. I have a sound recording of someone reciting the alphabet and each letter sounds so strained :-D

[Karlos]

This site seems OK, but I am not sure if the letters are rendering properly when they start to add the vowel indicators. That is to say, many of the consonants look totally unchanged when adding the vowel marks (see lessons 2+).

Is that the browser not rendering the text correctly?

[Karlos]

I get the impression there are a lot of similar throaty sounds in Dutch and Arabic.

I also imagine that the letters "khaa" and "haa" would be easy for scousers to pronounce :-D

[Karlos]

my advice would be to try to listen to as much arabic as you can if you got a satellite try and pick up al-jazeera for example

That'll definately double the contingents of unmarked black vans parked outside...

also remember that arabic only has 3 short vowels and 3 long vowels, them being a e u, and the long version of each...

Come on, I knew that much at least ;-)

gha
ghe
ghu
ghaa
ghee
ghuu

Sorry, I see this and your avatar and... :roflmao:

whereas normal wrttn rbc s wtht vwls, dont know why they decided to do that.

To pre-empt th mbl phn SMS rvltn?

you could also try blacking your self up and moving to cairo for 2 month, thats a good way to pick it up

After getting Al Jazeera, there's a good chance I might end up there for free, thanks to special rendition (TM) :lol: