Going back to Japan means I had to give up my Arabic Class. I was not thinking of taking another Arabic class in Japan. So I bought few books on Arabic and brought them home to Tokyo. I was thinking I would soon get back to my Arabic study.
It turned out that I was having problem settling my children back in their Japanese schools. I had to delay going back to studying my Arabic. And I delayed it further because of the Corona Outbreak.
It was around the time that I felt the Corona was going to linger longer, that I thought of taking an online Arabic class. It was the most natural thing to do then. My husband was working online, my children were schooling online, so I should learn Arabic online too!
Learning Arabic in Japanese
So I started to think of taking an online Arabic course in Japan. There are Arabic courses, delivered in English, offered in mosques in Tokyo. At first I was thinking of taking online Arabic lesson in Japanese.
I have to mention here, my motivation to learn Arabic was pretty much boosted by my jealousy of our Tokyo Mayor, Ms Yuriko Koike and the Nara Todaiji Temple chief abbot who translated Ibn Khaldun’s Al Muqaddimah into Japanese, Mr Kosei Morimoto. I was wondering how Arabic is taught in Japanese. May be I can try it out too!
Off I went to my local library and checked available Arabic textbooks they have. After scanning few of them, I found the book, Introduction to Arabic was the best. Unlike most Arabic textbooks that describe the 3 roots/radicals, the book uses three hollow squares but with their tashkeel/vocalization written. The book uses 10 verb groupings, associating the first verb group as the main trunk of a tree, and the other 9 verb groups as the tree branches. It has simple exercises with answer keys at the end of the book.
Roots/Radicals
Arabic roots are crafted from three consonants. These consonants are referred to as radicals, because they form the root when combined. Roots consisting of three radicals are known as triliteral roots. From Arabikey
Tashkeel
is a term for vowels/diacritics, or as it is called in Arabic, Harakat. They are additional marks or tiny symbols added to a letter to provide a phonetic guide or to help you reach the correct pronunciation. From alkhalil Arabic
I finished the book and moving on the second volume. Unfortunately, the library didn’t have it. I looked on online used book shop and found it, Step-up Introduction to Arabic . If the first volume of the book is supplemented with 100 common nouns, the second book is supplemented with 100 common verbs. In the second book, conversation topics, introduction to Arabic culture (a little bit old though), and explanation and sampels of the author caligraphy were quite interesting. And in the end, the autor recommends us readers, to simply go jumping on reading Arabic stories!
Reading Arabic Short Stories
I looked for reading materials that suit my Arabic level. At first, I was thinking of reading short poems in bilingual books. I thought it would be easy, especially because they are short! My choice was Classical Poems by Arab Women. It turned out to be a mistake. A passage in Arabic, even if it is short, and has proper translation, is hard to read if it has no tashkeel! The poems themselves were enjoyable in its translation. Not to mention the books short introduction of the Poets, good reference!
Another reading material I used was a series of Children Stories for Learning Arabic. This was helpful in building vocabularies. The series starts with simple theme, for examples words of your daily activities. Then it goes on to different themes of more complex expressions. To read the series, I opened my account on SCRIBD, bookmarked each series as a playlist, then went through each of the book; writing them down, and making a list of new vocabularies for each story. By the way, I love writing Arabic, it makes your fingers dancing!
My best find was Arabic Stories for Language Learners. Although the text is without tashkeel, it has audio files to learn the correct pronounciation, and also supplemented with lists of phrases and questions for your exercise. What else can you ask for!
Finding My Tutor
Actually there is one more thing you can do for better result;
A TUTOR! And it has to be the right kind of a tutor.
So what’s the right kind of tutor should be?
For me, continuation is the most important thing. So, the right tutor should be the one that can give you the right amount of challenge. Also, tutoring sessions should be fun, or at least enjoyable. Of course tutoring session availability, schedule flexibility (being late isn’t flexibility!), and tutoring materials should be clearly agreed by both parties.
Lucky for me, when I was thinking about taking online courses, the Arabic class I attended in Indonesia started to have online classes. They also provide a one-to-one online lesson. I was then reconnected with my teacher and started our Online Reading Lessons together. We have our reading lesson once a week and has been going on for 4 years now!
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