Gradual

I love reading other people’s suggestions and blogs on how they are learning languages, and I’ve found through this that the best approach to learning a language is the one that works for your individual personality. Benny (the Irish Polyglot) is a very outgoing young man (sorry, but he makes me feel old!) and his approach to language is very open, conversational, and uninhibited. He is a world traveler first, language learner second, but he enhances his travels by learning local languages and not so much by acting like a tourist, but more like a goof-ball (and I mean that in a good way!) I’m not and have never been this kind of person, so this approach would only get me so far before I died of embarrassment (not at mispronouncing words-I’m really a non-social person, and don’t feel all that comfortable going out of my way to meet new people without a little help from my husband!). Randy (the Yearlyglot) takes a different approach, and it works for him. I’m probably more like him in my current approach.

My language goals are not just speaking, but reading and writing as well, and also understanding the FULL language, not only colloquial or classical Arabic, but both, because they are both essential to the job I’m going to be doing! I’ll need to be able to understand the written language as well as the fast-paced spoken language.

I started thinking about how I’m approaching my learning, and I’ve got two different approaches, I’m kind of taking it from both angles because the speaking part is more difficult for me to hurdle, as someone who embarrasses easily, I need to become comfortable speaking with just my husband, but in the meantime, I don’t want that to slow down my understanding of the language, so I’m learning to read and write using a couple of books (the Bible and Harry Potter-see earlier posts on this!).

Basically, for my written study (I love studying-I’ll write more on this another time), I take some composition notebooks, pencils and extra erasers (very important!) and write out each sentence I read, then transliterate it into English letters to help me with pronunciation, saying the words out loud as I write, and using a good translator (Google Translate is usually good-I have another backup app on my phone-iTranslate, because Google isn’t always great-and if all else fails, I ask my husband!). As I learn more words, my approach may change, but this is really my beginning approach to reading, and it’s working fairly well for me at the moment.

I should mention that I started out very very slowly by learning the Arabic alphabet and committing it to memory. I didn’t quite learn it like “A-B-C,” although I did sometimes write out the letters in order, but I learned how to pronounce each letter. I still have trouble with a few, and no, I don’t know the names of them. Except alif (ا) and 3(a)in (ع). I don’t know why I know alif, but 3in is “eye” so my husband kind of taught me that inadvertently. I don’t really thinking knowing the names of the letters is particularly important at this point, but I’ll try to learn them later, as it may help me with spelling!

It’s also not really important to memorize the pronunciation of every single letter prior to beginning learning to read, because the more words you learn to read, the easier it is to pick out hard letters and remind yourself with some sort of chart what the letter sounds like. This is probably considered a phonetic approach, but I’m not really that interested in what to name it, I’m just going to do it.

Something else I should mention that really helps me is hearing the words spoken by a native speaker. Google translate does this now, but my husband often says words for me if I get mixed up, and I’ve also heard that there are lots of people on the internet who will chat over Skype or whatever to help learners hear the native accent and how to pronounce words properly.

Ultimately, my goal in learning to read/write Arabic is to be able to type easily and to recognize words just as I do with English. This is going to be the toughest part of my learning experience, because I’m finding that my brain is pretty established in the English letters, and even though I can read a lot of Arabic now (without understanding) my mind visualizes the English letters. I know that this will eventually fade, and with continued practice I’ll be able to read without even realizing I’m doing it. In this way, I think native speaking children absolutely have an advantage over adults, because they tend to start reading AFTER knowing some of the language, so their reading is with understanding, whereas adults will almost always approach the language in the opposite way, reading THEN understanding. But just because the kids have the advantage here doesn’t mean there aren’t other places where adult learners have the upper hand. Specifically, I’ve never heard of a child who taught himself to read without outside help. This would really be impossible. Literate adults can self-direct their learning because they have the advantage of already being able to read one language and can use that knowledge to learn another.

What do you think?

I’m still here.

I honestly think I’m going about this all the wrong way. I haven’t figured out what will work for me, but I am desperately trying to learn, but I’m sinking. I’ve picked up a lot of words, a few phrases, and I realize that I’m not really moving forward, even though I know quite a bit already. I can pick out words, but I cannot even fathom putting together a sentence that would even remotely make sense.

Okay. Enough complaining. I do get disheartened, especially when I see that other people are successfully learning a language. I need more practical experience, but I am not giving myself a chance. I need to do what Nike says and Just Do It. Failure is not an option. I must succeed.

Arabic isn’t necessarily a hard language. It’s confusing at times, but not hard. I know the sounds of the alphabet, I can read things, even aloud, but I often have no idea what I’m talking about! I wonder about things like “ing” and what that is in Arabic, and that probably takes away from my focus. I get mad because Classical, or written, Arabic is so different from the colloquial languages, particularly Egyptian Arabic, which is what I actually need to learn. Well, I need both, to be honest, because that’s part of the translation that we’ll be working on.

Probably in the next few weeks, I’ll be exploring options on conversing in Arabic with native Arabic speakers (besides my husband) to get a better practical experience in the language. We’ll get there.

Little victories

Last night, a really special thing happened. We have about a dozen books that are written in Arabic and English, and we’ve had them since our daughter was born. Last night, she brought one to my husband, because she’s taken an interest in learning Arabic, and she’s a budding (English) reader right now. She’s made some pretty amazing progress in a very short time, and the progress of a year I spent trying to teach her to read has been at least quadrupled by her kindergarten teachers in about 6 months. I want to introduce her to more Arabic, especially reading, but I also don’t want to overload her while she’s still learning to read English, so I’ve shied away from giving her a lot of time with it.

Anyway, she brought the book to my husband, but he was busy, so I said “I’ll read it with you!” We decided that she would read the English, and I would read the Arabic. My Arabic phonics have improved in the last few weeks, and I pretty much know the sounds of every letter, even if I don’t always say them well. So we read the book, very slowly. I helped her figure out the English words, and I sounded out each Arabic word I didn’t quite know. I was fairly successful, and I was very proud of my daughter for trying to not only figure out the English words, but pronouncing the Arabic words after I read them.

I’ll be honest, I was very amused at the whole incident, because I realized that we were basically both reading the same way. She knew many of her words, but needed help, and I had to sound out the words I didn’t  know very slowly several times before I felt confident in them. I also realized that my daughter didn’t really care that I can’t pronounce the words correctly, because she doesn’t really know any better. She was just happy to be reading with me.

I felt a big connection with my little girl last night because we were both going through a significant learning experience, and we were able to share that. Not many parents are able to share the experience of learning to read with their children in this way. It gave me a great appreciation for what children have to go through when learning to read, because, let’s be honest, most of us don’t remember what it was like when we had to learn how to read. I hope I can share many more books with my children!

Learning a new language is hard

I’m actually not writing to complain. I’m finding the challenge of Arabic quite enjoyable right now. But yes, it’s hard. It’s hard to stretch yourself to try new things, whether it’s a new language or another skill. But that certainly doesn’t mean you should never try.

I’ve been working through Genesis, as I mentioned last week. But Tuesday I began working on another book, Harry Potter. I am finding the different writing styles of the printers (okay, one is *technically* not a “printer” since it’s a digital format) a little challenging, as it’s like reading different people’s writing. So once you get past the font differences, it’s no big deal.

My biggest issue with decoding Harry Potter is actually the way that it was translated in the first place. I love these books, and I can’t really explain why I’m not liking the translation, but I feel like it’s missing something. It feels a bit cold, clinical. I just started reading it, so perhaps it will get better, but I am not feeling the same as I did learning the Bible verses.

I’ve seen some crossover words, and a lot of really common words. I’ve also seen some things that interest me in other ways, because there are words that are seemingly related, but then I realize that they actually have little in common except common letters. It’s sort of like sorting out English homonyms and word families, and realizing what fits and what doesn’t is an interesting challenge.

I have a husband who cares little for cracking open the Arabic language and studying grammar and such, so while he’s good at speaking and translating, he isn’t about to give me a lesson in conjugating verbs. Even so, he’s helped me when I ask a specific question about the form of a word, he is pretty helpful, to a point. I’m not out to criticize him, but he’s more of a guide than a teacher, so I’m having to fill in a lot of blanks, and then have him come in and check my work (a checker, perhaps?). I’ve made some mistakes with where to put the dots, whether loops go over or under the line on lined paper, and that darn little “s” looking thing that sounds like the “e” in egg. My phone doesn’t give me that letter as an option, which has started to tick me off when I’m trying to use it for translating. I get a totally random word that means nothing to the text instead of the word I actually meant.

Of course, I’m not saying all this to frighten you away. Maybe you’ve been wanting to learn a language, or you are in the middle of studying one. Well, I just want to say that I know how you’re feeling when you get annoyed and want to throw your study books out the window, or when your teacher has told you for the 1000th time, “it’s pronounced like this, not like that.”

Also, the small victories feel really good. When you start being able to think of words without searching your brain, when you know what a word on the page means and you aren’t translating it from the English, those kinds of things. Each small victory may come after a short learning period or a long one, but they still come if you work toward them.

Anything worth doing is going to take work. If it’s not earned, it doesn’t have the same rewards.

Genesis

I finally got started on my daily studies of language, and spent time two days in a row (so far) working through a couple of verses at a time in the book of Genesis.
I wasn’t surprised to know a few words, particularly الله, المياه, نور, ليلا, and في. I knew a couple of other ones, but not as well. I figured out that in the first 7 verses of the Arabic Bible, there are roughly 49 different words, and already, because of the poetic pattern of this chapter, I’m picking up on words in subsequent verses that are repeated.
You may be wondering why I’m using the Bible, as I would guess that some would find it an ineffective language teacher, even if it is a good book. Well, my rational is manifold, and I won’t go into the whole thing right now, but I’ll say that I’m going to need to know a lot of “Biblical” language for the job I’m learning Arabic for, and that many ESL classes taught by church groups often use the text of the Bible to teach English as well as literacy.
I don’t think it is necessarily important which book or even which method you use to help you become literate in a language, but if one of your goals truly is literacy, not just speaking, any book well written in the target language or well translated from another language is probably going to help you.
The other tools you’ll need are going to be patience, pencils, paper and a good language to language dictionary. Google is okay, but often frustrating. I like Lonely Planet’s guide, but it also lacks, and so a combination of a few programs and books will probably help a ton.
I am learning to write and read, as well as speak, so I write out a sufficient amount of the text, about half a page, double spaced, on the right half of the page. I write a transliteration under the words and then the English equivalent on the left half of the page.
In two days, I’ve done 7 verses, so an average of about 4 short or 3 long verses will be my normal practice until I start knowing more words and then I will probably add more verses, but not more than an average length chapter at once.
I’m finding that I’m not only learning the Arabic words, I’m almost memorizing the Arabic verses and definitely memorizing the English versions of the same. To me, this feels like an added bonus, and I hope that I can continue to be motivated to work through the text and learn to read even more.

Shaking things up

The new year brought some very unexpected and saddening news about Egypt, specifically the terrorist car-bombing of an Alexandria Coptic Church. The Egyptian government’s reaction to the attack was somewhat more startling, because, while condemning the attack, it blamed foreigners, because (as some naive people naively said) “Egyptians would never hurt other Egyptians. Huh.

Well, as we all know now, Egyptians CAN and HAVE hurt other Egyptians, just as Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, Britons, Germans, etc., have all done throughout history. The government of Egypt had its downfall in its treatment of its own citizens, all the while claiming that they were working for the good of the people.

Now hear me out, I’m not writing this blog to be political, but I love Egypt, and I love what I’m seeing, a people speaking up for their rights. How will it turn out? I don’t know, but I do know how to pray, so that’s what I’ll do, and I’ll not worry about what tomorrow *might* bring. I’ll let Glenn Beck do that.

But the shake-up of Egypt (and apparently all of the Arabic speaking world!) is changing my family’s plans, and also giving me a greater motivation for learning Arabic. We are still moving, but the problem is that we need some stability, because we need to know our place. We have decided that even though we’ve moved our trip plans, we’ll be investing in Egypt in some way. My husband is Egyptian, and a very proud one (good proud), and wants to see real freedom in Egypt. We are Christians, so in the minority in Egypt. Positive changes for minorities in Egypt are very welcome to us and many others, for obvious reasons. But we want to see a strong Egypt financially as well.

This “song of the revolution” that some of the protesters wrote and created a video for is an amazing proof of the desire of the Egyptians and perhaps many others in the Middle East/North Africa to have freedom. I pray that the military-appointed council of Egypt and the governments of the rest will not prevent the people’s voices from being heard. (If you don’t speak Arabic, use the CC option to see the English translation.)

The chorus says:

في كل شارع في بلادي ، صوت الحرية بينادى
Fi kouli shareh fi blaedi, Sout al-horeya binadi: “In every street in my country, the sound of freedom is calling.”

My language goals for 2011

Well, I’ve been very neglectful of this blog. But I plan on changing that in the coming year, and I will be sharing a lot more of my language triumphs and struggles. I’ve decided to write out my goals for 2011, and I’ve been sharing them on my blogs.

In 2011, I have decided to make up a schedule for my blogs, and since I have several, I have had to limit the days I write on each to no more than three. At the moment, I’m less likely to have much to write on this blog, but I’m going to try for once or twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I won’t always have something to write, but I won’t be writing here on other days.

My main goal for this blog is to share how I’m becoming fluent in Arabic, and I have the goal of becoming fluent by the end of 2011. I’ve given myself a year because I have other commitments, and language learning often takes a backseat to family and home. I vow to not forget about it so easily this year, and I hope that by the end of this year, I’ll be speaking and writing in Arabic fluently.

As far as individual time commitment to studying, I am going to work my way up to longer study periods, but at this time, I’m going to spend 15 minutes learning phrases and words each day, and 15 minutes reading one of two options of books I have in Arabic (Harry Potter, and the Bible-New Testament. I know, this is an odd combination.), and that 15 minutes will usually be with my native Arabic-speaking husband to help me translate. I have both of these reading materials in English, so if all else fails, I’ve got a backup plan for deciphering the text. If I need to, I’ll work my way up to 30 minutes of each of these activities each day, but practical application is far more important at this point.

I won’t just be studying the text or learning words and phrases for 15 minutes, though. I plan on using the knowledge I gain by speaking to my husband and children in Arabic, as it applies, throughout the day. My goal in this is not only to be fluent, but also to be speaking mainly Arabic to my family by the end of the year as well.

If you’re interested in my other goals or what is going on in my life besides learning Arabic, here’s my main blog.

Reading Harry Potter

A few weeks ago while we were on our trip, I bought all 7 Harry Potter books in Arabic. I started “reading” the first one, picking through the first chapter and underlining the names of the characters first, so that I could recognize them. Then I went back and started trying to recognize words and phrases that I am already familiar with. I haven’t picked it up in about 3 weeks, since a few days after we got home.

I did realize that even in a language that has a different written alphabet than English, if you learn the letters then just keep practicing recognizing them, you can commit that to your memory banks and eventually, you won’t think in terms of “ABC” but in terms of the sounds the letters are making and even begin to read words you don’t know without mentally translating.

Of course, this all takes lots of constant practice, and means that you have to stick with it. If you only learn it a little and then drop it, you almost have to start over. It’s not like riding a bike, but more like remembering your way around roads you haven’t driven down in years. You don’t lose it all (unless it’s been many years), but you lose enough that you have to re-memorize things and reacquaint yourself with those neural pathways.

I decided that for my first real practice with reading books in Arabic, I would read something that I am very familiar with already, because it would help me to pick up words that are frequently used. I love Harry Potter, and I knew it was translated, so it was more a matter of finding all 7 books in various places, and now it’s a matter of actually spending time every day reading and learning. Even if it takes me forever and I only get through a paragraph a day at first, I hope eventually it will move more quickly, and I will not only understand all the “wizard” words, but will be able to read other Arabic books and publications. I also think this will *help* with my spoken practice, especially if I try reading aloud.

The big adventure

In about 9 days, I am headed on a 3 week trip to visit in-laws, share in a wedding celebration, and go to a nice beach and other cool places in Egypt. And I am no closer to my learning goal than I was 3 months ago! I am hoping, though, to start picking up lots of language while with more distant relatives of my husband, because his immediate family tends to speak English when I’m around, and while that’s thoughtful of them, it doesn’t do much good to me when I’m trying to learn how to speak Arabic.

So, part of my goal over the three weeks will be to listen intently to conversation and try communicating in Arabic as much as possible. I know that younger cousins will be helpful, because they are less judgmental and eager to teach rather than to be the learner. I will try to watch as little English television as possible, at least adult programs. I’ll let the kids watch their cartoons, but will try to find cartoons that are speaking Arabic first, so that they can pick up a little language, too.

This won’t be like our last visit, which was more of a vacation, and much of our time was spent at tourist locales. I’m hoping that the extended time spent with family (unlike last time) will encourage people to help me pick up the language, since many of the family struggle to speak English and I hate making them feel like they have nothing to say, because I know how it feels. Awkward! Staring at one another, hoping that some form of body language and non-verbal communication will get the point across.

Well, that’s it for now, but I hope to share a little from the road about any progress, too. I’m pretty excited (and not just to learn, there’s a wedding coming! How exciting is that?).

Feeling a little sheepish

I did not realize it had been over two months since I posted about starting my language project. That means what you think it does. I haven’t gotten very far. Mostly, my own complacency has kind of stalled the whole thing, and I do get sidetracked easily. I’m trying to find a way to do multiple projects (unrelated) all at once, and the one that gets most quickly neglected is learning a language.

Why? Well, I can think of lots of stupid excuses, try to rationalize my reasons, but honestly, it’s because it doesn’t feel urgent enough. I want to learn. I really do. But there’s nothing telling me “if you don’t learn this, you’re going to have a really hard time.” And I’m still hanging out here in the States, which means I have little chance to practice in person, even with my built-in Arabic speaker.

But enough excuses. I AM going to make a plan, and even if I’m not much further along by the end of this month, I’ll certainly be somewhere. I recently borrowed some Arabic language learning cd sets from our local library, and realized that I do know quite a bit, even if I’m not practicing. So solidifying what I actually know, practicing and becoming better at speaking the language correctly, is what I’m going to focus on the most this month.

And I pledge to do better at practicing and sharing on my blog, too. Ma es salaema.