So you've learned the Arabic alphabet, feel comfortable and confident writing and reading Arabic words*. Your pronunciation is great, but you are not quite ready to move onto a meaty course just yet. Nevertheless, you want to still make some sort of progress in Arabic. What's the next step?
There are various ways by which you can still maintain that connection to the language and not have to sit in a classroom for long durations. Here are a few:
What's your favourite topic of interest of late?
Reading about something we are interested in gives us a reason to engage in a reading activity in the first place. I mean why would you pick up something to read unless there was a reason for it, and a strong motive at that?! How about taking a glance or two at that topic of interest in Arabic? Just Google your topic in Arabic & voila! Get that Arabic reading practice rolling!
Are you into wordsearches?
Wordsearches, and tell me if you disagree, can help decrease screen time, are a means of creating that winding down time, enhances spelling and can increase mental performance.
What if you were to take advantage of all those benefits in Arabic? When doing a wordsearch in Arabic, not only will you exercise all of the above, but you'll also have an additional need to mentally recall the Arabic letter forms and consistently make and break the letters as you read the Arabic letters within the Arabic word in question in their connected form, and then adjust your eyes to their singular form in the grid.
Perhaps Afro-creativity is calling you?
Connecting to whatever it is we may harbour within our inner world through self-expression can perhaps help shift stagnant energy and thus make room to accommodate more or make us more willing to take on that next step we were not ready for in our lives. Self-expression can be a means of not only self-soothing but a way of affirming ourselves. And when adding the element of embracing our African heritage that some venues unwelcome and thus finding ourselves having to somewhat suppress that & or dismiss that, what a liberation that can be. Try out Afrabics therapeutics here, and get Afro-Arabic creative!
OK. So it's none of the above, is it?
It may be that you are then ready to start this 8 step journey to help you get speaking the basics of classical Arabic and have small conversations and get daily affairs done. This is a deeper dive of a mini live tutorial series I did on IG.** :
~ STEP 1 - Arabic nouns:
Why start with the Arabic nouns and not the verbs, though?
You'll get there, sis. However, if you are someone whose first language doesn't involve dual forms, masculine and feminine forms in both singular and plural, then perhaps diving into the memorisation of and the conjugation of verbs and all of their 14 personal pronouns is not the correct move for you just yet.
And yes! You read correctly, 14! We, in the English language only have 7 personal pronouns in the subject form.
Agreed?
If we're on the same page up until this point, then perhaps you are now asking where to start? To answer that, I'd respond with something similar to the above above the reading activity.
Do you have a hobby, a goal, a dream or perhaps a profession that you are passionate about? Well start there, sis! Do take advantage of a dictionary (hard copy/ online) or a translation app to help you find the Arabic noun/s that is/are important to you, personally.
The more personalised the experience is for you, the more likely you'll find the Arabic learning experience a practical one. If you're still stuck there, then here's a little push with my Afrabics taboo game.
A little recap in case I lost you there, sis.... So step 1 is: learn an Arabic noun.
Arabic nouns. What I need to know:
1- An Arabic noun (in classical Arabic) in its natural form has a vowel ending situated above the last letter. It somewhat looks like a comma (refer to pic below), and has an /ʊ/ sound. This is called a 'dumma' and when an Arabic noun has a dumma at its end, we call this 'marfoo'.
2- Do Arabic nouns have upper and lower cases like we do in English? No. They do not have upper and lower cases, but instead, when the name of a person is feminine, it differs from the name of someone that is masculine in that the feminine name has only 1 dumma at its end and not two when it's a male name.
Example:
Ahmed: a male name -> Ahmad+un-> Ahmadun
Khadija: a female name -> Khadija+tu -> Khadijatu
(the 't' that appeared in Khadija was because the 'taa marbootah's (having a gentle /h/ sound) sound changes or becomes more prominent or apparent when having a vowel sound above or below it.)
What about articles? Do they have them in Arabic?
Yes.
Do look out for the next blog post for STEP 2 - Articles.
In the meantime, sis....maybe challenge yourself to learn a set number of nouns for the week? Example: memorise 1 word a day (Arabic noun, remember) for 5 days? I'd love to know how you get on in the comments, or feel free to reach out to me, here.
Smooth sailing on your Arabic learning journey!
*[If you're not quite feeling comfortable and confident with reading, writing and pronouncing Arabic, try my interactive mini course series currently on a summer sale for just £19: Afrabics-Arabic with a splash of Africa]
**[Reminder: Classical Arabic is not the conversational language used in Arabic speaking countries and mainly used in the field of academia, formal situations like conferences, in courts e.t.c, when you hear the news, road signs and signs at the airports. For conversation, you'll need to learn the colloquial language of that particular Arabic speaking country]]