Learn Arabic

To learn Arabic can be quaite a feat, especially as the Arabic letters are totally different from the Western script. It's therefore a lot more convenient and rapid to learn to speak Arabic by listening to audio tapes or MP3 files with Arabic classes.

One such system is the Pimsleur Arabic classes, a series of audio files specifically prepared to teach Arabic students in an efficient, easy to implement and fun way the Arabic language.

An other good way of becoming prificient in Arabic is to listen to Arabic Radio Stations and Free ArabicTV online. (See links further down).

Recently one of the students in an Arabic course asked the teacher: "Is learning Arabic from books possible?"

The expected answer was: "No, not really", as the other students were persuaded, that following an Arabic course was a much better way. However, the teacher gave an different answer: "It depends very much on your motivation and your language skills. If you are determinded to learn Arabic, then you might very well suceed learning Arabic from a book alone. Better would be to have the book and somebody who speaks Arabic then test your newly acquired language skills and get corrected where necessary. If you don't have soembody to talk to, use TV channels or movies in the Arabic language to at least hear how the language sounds and train your ear. Also try to repeat after the people who speak in these programs to train your own pronunciation"

So, if you don't have an other means, a book to learn Arabic might very well be a doable way to learn Arabic.

Watching Movies in the Arabic language is an other great way to learn Arabic. The context of images and the different accents you hear in a movie help your brain to learn in context.

Also, even if you don't understand new words, you hear them in the correct context and your brain will start to make associations withoput you even noticing it. Also by watching Arabic movies, you will learn soemthing about the culture of the Arab world.

Understanding the culture of a region or a country can help tremendously to understand the language spoken in this country a lot better. Certain ways to use the language are directly related to the culture that a country has. Therefore understanding Arabic culture in general and the culture of the specific country you plan on visiting or living in is crucial.

Preparing for such visits or periods of residence is a must, unless you want to make a lot of mistakes and create sometimes very difficult situations. Especially in Arab countries, certain things are not just a gaffe that can be overlooked, but they can create serious trouble for a foreigner.

The books below might help you prepare for the visit to the Arab region. Also try to find more books about the specific country you want to visit by looking for "xyz-country culture"

The influence on other similar languages of the Arabic language has been most important in Islamic countries.

Arabic is the baisis for the vocabulary for many different languages like Berber, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian, Swahili, Urdu, Hindustani (especially the spoken variety), Turkish, Malay and Indonesian, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken. Here is a good example: The Arabic word for book (kitab) is used in all the languages listed.

Also more Western oriented languages like Spanish and Portuguese have large numbers of Arabic loan words. This is due to the historically close proximity of Arab conquerors and the trade exchanges these countries had with the Arab world.

Even English has quite a few word with Arabic origins, some directly but most through the medium of other Mediterranean languages. Other languages such as Maltese and Kinubi are based on Arabic, thus they were not just borrowing some words for their vocabulary or some grammar rules, they are built on the basis of Arabic.

The books above will help parents chose an Arabic name for their newborn baby, be it a girl or a boy. These books include many Quranic / Arabic / Persian muslim names for both boys and girls.

Such a book is nearly a must if you are a new parent. It can be difficult to chose a good name, and there is no need to pull your hair out trying to think of a suitable muslim name for your newborn. Any of the above books will be a good choice, and they all are a great help.

These books are also very interesting, if you are learning Arabic, as many of the Muslim names have a deep meaning, and knowing about it might help you understand who is in front of you.

The books about baby names below go into the same category. No need to buy more than one, read the customer reviews provided on the product pages for more info, some readers have left really useful information that will help you decide!

rabic music is totally different to the music as we are used to listen to in the Western world. Therefore, listening to Arabic music might not be the most easy method to increase your knowledge of the Arabic language. It will however help you further understand the culture of the Arabic world.

Modern Arabic music artists are Amr Diab, Samira Said, Hisham Abbas, Angham, Asalah Nasri, Kadhem Al Saher, Mostafa Amar, Najwa Karam, Nawal Al Zoghbi, Ehab Tawfik, Mohamed Fouad, Diana Haddad, Mohamed Mounir, Latifa, Cheb Khaled, George Wassouf, and Hakim.

An other form of Arabic music is the blend between Arabic and Western music,called Franco-Arabic music. The musicians who first made this styl popular are Dalida from Egypt, Sammy Clarke  from Lebanon and Aldo from Australia.

If you are open for new experiences, give Arabic music a try, you will discover a new world of music, and a very interesting one at that!

Watching TV in the language you want to learn is a great way to getting used to different voices, accents and a very broad vocabulary. Sure, at the beginning you are not likely to understand all that much. But the exposure to the language in context with the images will allow you to build up a passive vocabulary that over time will come to mind automatically, when you find yourself in a situation that is similar to the one you have seen a few times on TV.

Learning a language by watching images and hearing the conversations or comments at the same time allows the brain to do the work for you, without you realizing that you are learning.

If you've never tried this approach, give yourself a few hours in front of an Arabic TV channel, you will be astonished how much you will understand!

.... that's a major task!

The Arabic letters are unlike anything we are using in the West, and the sense in which they are written too. The easiest are the numbers, they are to a degree similar to what we are using.

The books below are a good starting point, they help you systematically understand how the Arabic writen word is handled and how you can go about learning the Arabic script.

Count on some time until you are really good at it, but once you have understood and practiced enough, reading and writing Arabic will open you an entire new word!

Once you know the Arabic alphabet, you have opened the door to an unlimited number of words!

Using an Arabic dictionary, you can now dive deep into the Arabic language and learn a smany words as you feel suitable. The dictionraires below will assist you in your quest to learn as many Arabic words as you need for your specific communication needs.

An electronic dictionary may be what you need, or mabe better a simple printed Arabic dictionary?

The question what is more convenient: Using an Electronic or a conventional printed Arabicdictionary, crops up quite often.

It really depends on how well you read and write Arabic. If you are well versed in the Arabic alphabet, then a conventional dictionary can be easier to use and also will be indpendet of power sources. Especially if you are on an expedition into th desert or other far away places getting new batteries could be a problem.

If you are not so familiar with the Arabic alphabet, then an electrnic dictionary might be very useful, as thse days, most electronic dictionaries also have a voice mode, in which the words are also spoken, so that you may hear how to pronounce a specific word.