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.

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