While in Lebanon I am taking a class to learn Arabic. The Arabic language is very complex. Spoken Arabic varies so much from country to country many people would say that the different dialects of Arabic are different languages entirely.
Arabic is written and read from right to left. Each letter only makes one sound (that's what my teacher says but when the letter is written with a vowel it sounds differently.) Letters are connected when writing words (some of them are, some letters are non-connectors and they do not connect, you just have to remember which are which.)
I am learning classical, written Arabic as well as spoken Lebanese Arabic. So far on the classical side we have learned the entire alphabet and all of the letter sounds. This is what the letters look like.
Many of the letters have English equivalents. The ba sounds like the English B, the sin sounds like the English S, shin sounds like SH, mim sounds like M, BUT a lot of the letters are entirely new sounds for me and are difficult to say. It just takes some practice to be able to pronounce them.
The letters also look differently depending on where they are in a word, because most of the letters are connected in writing. This chart shows how they change if the letter is the first letter of a word, in the middle of a word, or at the end of a word.
In the second half of my class we learn spoken Lebanese Arabic. To learn the spoken language we write words using Latin letters instead of Arabic characters (this is hard to do though, because like I said earlier, many of the letter sounds do not exist in English)
Here are some things that I have learned:
Marhaba Hello
Kiifak How are you?
Kteer Mniih Very Good
Shou ismik? What is your name?
SabaaH l kheer Good morning.
We have learned the words for all of the things in a Matbakh (kitchen), Ssu (market), and a Mahall Tyep (clothing store).
We have also learned pharses like:
Ana talbe bi l jamiama. I am a student in university.
Baddi shawarma chicken bidoon kibess. I want chicken shawarma without pickles.
Huti l may bi l berrad. Put the water in the refrigerator.
Iza betrid atini jazar iasiir. Please give me carrot juice.
Ana Shway Bahkee A'arabee I speak a little Arabic.
Learning Arabic has been difficult but I am enjoying it. It is fun to experience this part of the culture and try to talk to others in Arabic.
Arabic is written and read from right to left. Each letter only makes one sound (that's what my teacher says but when the letter is written with a vowel it sounds differently.) Letters are connected when writing words (some of them are, some letters are non-connectors and they do not connect, you just have to remember which are which.)
I am learning classical, written Arabic as well as spoken Lebanese Arabic. So far on the classical side we have learned the entire alphabet and all of the letter sounds. This is what the letters look like.
The letters also look differently depending on where they are in a word, because most of the letters are connected in writing. This chart shows how they change if the letter is the first letter of a word, in the middle of a word, or at the end of a word.
Here are some things that I have learned:
Marhaba Hello
Kiifak How are you?
Kteer Mniih Very Good
Shou ismik? What is your name?
SabaaH l kheer Good morning.
We have learned the words for all of the things in a Matbakh (kitchen), Ssu (market), and a Mahall Tyep (clothing store).
We have also learned pharses like:
Ana talbe bi l jamiama. I am a student in university.
Baddi shawarma chicken bidoon kibess. I want chicken shawarma without pickles.
Huti l may bi l berrad. Put the water in the refrigerator.
Iza betrid atini jazar iasiir. Please give me carrot juice.
Ana Shway Bahkee A'arabee I speak a little Arabic.
Learning Arabic has been difficult but I am enjoying it. It is fun to experience this part of the culture and try to talk to others in Arabic.
