Category — How to learn a new language

Assuming you have a solid command of the Arabic alphabet, you are now ready to study some basic vocabulary. But first, you must spend some time thinking about how you will overcome two common problems students have with learning Arabic vocabulary. The first problem is how you will organize the large amount of words. The second problem is what methods and tricks you can personally use to memorize and retain the vocabulary.

If you are someone who learns better from organized material, then vocabulary lists by subject matter will benefit you. But how fun is it to stare at list after list of unfamiliar words? Not only do you risk losing interest in the language because of the boredom of repetition, but repeatedly looking over lists of words with no logical structure can double the amount of time you really need to learn the material. You should think about what types of activities facilitate your learning and try to incorporate those into your learning routine.

Perhaps watching Arabic movies with subtitles, or listening to Arabic songs with the lyrics in front of you, will help you pick up the material much quicker than word lists. The Egyptian Arabic Dialect Course is an online course designed as a first introduction to the language using examples and vocabulary from the lyrics of popular songs. The songs are a good way to hear and learn pronunciation and basic grammar structures without being bogged down by too much vocabulary. The repetition of the song will also help you retain the material better. The site has 15 lessons that you can study at your own pace and return to at your leisure.

The Egyptian Arabic Course blog also has a word list compiled by the blog owner that includes months of the year, common verbs, family members, colors, and much more here.

The English-Arabic Vocabulary Quizzes are a good way to check how much you’ve learned and retained from you studies. The quizzes test basic vocabulary, including adjectives describing people, time adverbs, animals, parts of the body, colors, days of the week, fruits, months, and numbers. There are also quizzes covering greetings, school-related words, and more. All the quizzes are written by volunteers, but are very comprehensive and accurate.

This Gulf Arabic website has basic vocabulary and definitions, but there are no audio files to help you with pronunciation.

Learning the Arabic alphabet is a good first step to learning to read and write in the Arabic language. Knowledge of the alphabet will allow you to recognize place names, signs, food items, and much more if you plan on traveling to the Middle East.

There are some basics you should know about the Arabic language. Arabic is read from right to left. There are a total of 29 letters in the Arabic alphabet, all of which are basically consonants. Vowels do exist, but are not considered part of the alphabet. Each letter takes the appearance of four different forms, depending on where they appear in a word. Fortunately, these forms all look similar to each other. For more information about what the letters are called, how to pronounce them, and how to write them in all four forms, visit (http://www.shariahprogram.ca/Arabic-alphabet.shtml).

Unlike the English alphabet, the Arabic alphabet does not distinguish between capital letters and lowercase letters. There is also no such thing as printing versus cursive writing, which makes thing easier since this means that there is essentially only one way to write Arabic. For more information about the writing the alphabet and Arabic in general, visit (http://www.shariahprogram.ca/Arabic-alphabet.shtml).

You can find some resources for learning the symbols and pronunciation of the Arabic alphabet at Arabic2000. Some good books to invest in are Teach Yourself Beginner’s Arabic Script and Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds. You can get used copies of these books for only a few dollars.

The alphabet can be difficult to learn since the symbols and pronunciation are so different from that of the American alphabet. However, learning a couple of symbols a day through memorization and practice can help you cover the entire alphabet in just one week. Practice writing each symbol and make flash cards to help you recognize what they look like and sound like. Create sample drills for yourself by grouping different letters together and testing yourself to see if you can correctly write the symbols and say the pronunciation. Learning the alphabet and remembering the order of the letters will come in handy when you want to use an Arabic dictionary later to further help your studies.

Yemen Links has some printable Arabic learning materials here (http://www.yemenlinks.com/Arabic_Download.htm) that you can use to help improve your reading and writing. These materials include flashcards, coloring pages, and writing practice sheets. The writing practice forms will be particularly useful to help you practice writing the alphabet. The sheets can be used in a few different ways. You can print them out and then trace the letters to help practice your form. You can also print the pages with just the boxed and practice writing the letters without any of the traceable letters visible. Another idea is to print the sheets and laminate them so that you can repeatedly use the same sheet with dry erase markers. The writing practice forms can be found here. There are four total but each one is multiple pages.

Yemen Links also has printable matching games to help learn the symbols of the alphabet and the numbers. Other learning games and learning tools can be found here.

Egyptian Arabic is one dialect which is widely used in Egypt, along with Modern Standard Arabic. Egyptian Arabic is also known as Egyptian Colloquial Arabic or the Modern Egyptian Language. Egypt is the largest Arabic speaking country and Egyptian Arabic is spoken by more than fifty million Egyptians. Egyptian Arabic is even used in other Arab countries because of the popularity of Egyptian media. In addition, many immigrant communities in Europe, North America, and Australia speak Egyptian Arabic, so it will be useful to start off learning Egyptian Arabic.

It would be helpful to first learn the Arabic alphabet before you proceed to learn grammar and vocabulary. This helpful summary will give you all the basics you need to know about the alphabet, but it will take diligence and persistence on your part before you will master the alphabet.

The alphabet can be difficult to learn since the symbols and pronunciation are so different from that of the American alphabet. However, learning a couple of symbols a day through memorization and practice can help you cover the entire alphabet in just one week. Practice writing each symbol and make flash cards to help you recognize what they look like and sound like. Create sample drills for yourself by grouping different letters together and testing yourself to see if you can correctly write the symbols and say the pronunciation. Learning the alphabet and remembering the order of the letters will come in handy when you want to use an Arabic dictionary later to further help your studies. For more resources for learning the alphabet, see the other articles on the best way to learn Arabic.

After a solid understanding of the alphabet, you can begin to move on to learning basic vocabulary. The Egyptian Arabic Course blog has a list compiled by the blog owner that includes months of the year, common verbs, family members, colors, and much more here.

One useful resource for learning Egyptian Arabic online is through the Egyptian Arabic Online Learning Resource Center. This link is a portal to resources for proverbs and sayings in Egyptian Arabic. There is also an article about the five most important things learners of Egyptian Colloquial Arabic should remember.

ArEg World has audio courses, grammar lessons, phrase booklets, and educational games to help ease the learning process, some of which cost a small fee. There is also a free dictionary of commonly used words and sentences here.

The Egyptian Arabic Dialect Course is an online course designed as a first introduction to the language using examples and vocabulary from the lyrics of popular songs. The songs are a good way to hear and learn pronunciation and basic grammar structures without being bogged down by too much vocabulary. The repetition of the song will also help you retain the material better. The site has 15 lessons that you can study at your own pace and return to at your leisure.

Learning Arabic in Egypt is an interesting experience. With Egypt’s rich history and culture, you are bound to learn more than just the language by studying in Egypt’s many language immersion schools.

The Al Diwan Center offers intensive winter immersion programs. Small group classes are offered, as well as one-on-one classes that can be customized to suit your individual learning needs. There are also longer, more intensive programs for those who want a deeper understanding of the Arabic language and culture. For example, there is a nine month long program available that is carefully designed to help you move up one level every 50 hours. This program is 36 weeks long and is divided into the regular program, which is 450 hours, and the intensive program, which is 900 hours long. For more information on the academic schedules, tuitions, and the overall registration process, visit the website.

Languages in Action contains information on Arabic courses and schools in Egypt. Among the locations are Alexandria, Cairo, and Luxor. Alexandria is Egypt’s second largest city after the capital city of Cairo. The Arabic school in Alexandria is located in Mancheya with many restaurants and shopping to keep students busy during their free time. The teachers all have university degrees and are full competent at teaching Arabic as a second language. The courses can be individual or group, and you can have as many sessions as you want. Lessons are generally 60 minutes long.

Cairo offers an excellent opportunity to learn Arabic. It is a city where students will get a glimpse of both the old and the new. The Arabic school in Cairo is located in the El Qubba district. Facilities include free internet access, a cafeteria, a garden, and more.

Language Courses Abroad, or LCA also has some resources for those who want to learn Arabic in Egypt. According to the main page, Egypt is an ideal place to learn to speak and read the language since the two most widely used versions of Arabic, Fousha (also known as Modern Standard Arabic or MSA) and Aameya (Egyptian Colloquial Arabic), exist side by side in Egypt, and their school in Cairo offers both of these versions.  Modern Standard Arabic, as mentioned briefly in the article about the best way to learn Arabic, is commonly used in printed publications and TV and radio programs. MSA is also used in international Arab conferences all across the Middle East.

Another great place to learn Arabic in Egypt is the Fajr Center. The Fajr Center for the Arabic Language was founded in 1995 and is located in Cairo, Egypt. It is affiliated with the Egyptian Ministry of Education. It’s main goal Is to teach Classical Arabic so that non-Arabic speakers can become proficient in the language and obtain employment in Arab countries. Similar to Language Courses Abroad, the Fousha and Aameya dialects are offered as the primary programs. There are also advanced programs in grammar, conversation, and more. A teacher’s training program, as well as specialized programs such as calligraphy, public speaking, and political relations, are available.

Learning Arabic in a wonderful place like Dubai is a real treat for many who want a full immersion experience. Dubai is a member of the United Arab Emirates. There are many opportunities in Dubai for Americans to learn Arabic, as long as all the necessary paperwork is completed and appropriate visas are acquired.

Before you begin to learn Arabic in Dubai, you should do some research on the geography, history, culture, and traditions of the Emirate of Dubai. Dubai is located on a peninsula bounded by the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. It is home to a lot of beautiful and extravagant architecture. Dubai, the capital city of the Emirate of Dubai, is filled with many grand hotels, restaurants, and shopping centers and is a big tourist attraction.

If you want to learn Arabic in Dubai, you should research a university that suits your learning needs. There are dozens of universities, and picking the right one will take some time and thought. A good resource to start at is Dubai International Academic City (DIAC) which has information on and links to many academic institutions, both foreign and Dubai-sponsored.

Among the many universities that are a part of DIAC are the American University in the Emirates, Cambridge College International Dubai, Michigan State University Dubai, The British University in Dubai, The University of Exeter, University of Phoenix, and many more. These universities offer bachelors and masters programs in many fields, in addition to language courses in Arabic.

After picking several universities that you are interested in, apply early and allow yourself ample time to fill out any paperwork or complete any tasks required for acquiring the appropriate visas. Americans who are only visiting Dubai do not need a visa, but American students who intend to stay for an extended period of time should apply for a visa as soon as they receive an acceptance package.

Remember that Dubai is halfway across the world from the United States, and hence you should make arrangements for communication with your family and friends back at home despite the time difference. It is also important to come up with a plan to arrange your finances. Having a bank account with a major American bank will be very useful. If you plan on converting American dollars into Dubai currency, be prepared to pay or withdraw money from your bank in Dubai, be prepared for some costly fees.

If you are looking for a language immersion experience in Dubai, this site may have some useful resources. There are several course options on this site, allowing you to pick between 2 or 4 50-minute lessons daily throughout a 3 week program. Lessons are open to all levels, and a placement test will help determine the appropriate starting point for you.

Dubai is a modern city and studying Arabic there will ensure that you have plenty of fun during the evenings and on the weekends. The important part is finding a curriculum that suits your learning needs and interests.

Before deciding on a best way to learn Arabic, it is important to think about why you want to learn Arabic. Whether you are interested in learning the language for work, religion, friendship, or a hobby, the reason will determine the best learning method and the appropriate version of the language to learn.

If you’re interested in a particular dialect spoken in one country, the safest option is to learn Modern Standard Arabic. This version is used in most written publications, as well as in television and radio programs. Although this version is a little too proper and formal for everyday conversational settings, you can be sure that you will be understood by Arabs almost all around the world. Of course, if your ears are accustomed to Modern Standard Arabic, you may find it difficult to understand the more colloquial Arabic that will be spoken to you. However, learning Modern Standard Arabic will allow you to quickly pick up the nuances and peculiarities of a local dialect.

Standard Arabic will also be most useful if you are interested in Islam, although you will probably want to learn Qur’anic Arabic, which will be the most appropriate.

In general, Arabic is a difficult language to learn, and most of the paid materials are quite expensive. If you are just looking to learn some basic Arabic for free at home, there are a couple of online resources you can use. The Foreign Service Institute contains some audio and text materials for free download here (http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Arabic). There are courses available in written Arabic, Levantine Arabic, Saudi Arabic, and comparative Arabic.

Learning the Arabic alphabet is a good first step to learning the Arabic language. Knowledge of the alphabet will allow you to recognize place names, signs, food items, and much more if you plan on traveling to the Middle East. You can find some resources for learning the symbols and pronunciation of the Arabic alphabet at Arabic2000. Some good books to invest in are Teach Yourself Beginner’s Arabic Script and Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds. You can get used copies of these books for only a few dollars.

The alphabet can be difficult to learn since the symbols and pronunciation are so different from that of the American alphabet. However, learning a couple of symbols a day through memorization and practice can help you cover the entire alphabet in just one week. Practice writing each symbol and make flash cards to help you recognize what they look like and sound like. Create sample drills for yourself by grouping different letters together and testing yourself to see if you can correctly write the symbols and say the pronunciation. Learning the alphabet and remembering the order of the letters will come in handy when you want to use an Arabic dictionary later to further help your studies.

After you have a good command of the alphabet, you can start looking for other means to learn the Arabic language. Depending on your budget and time constraints, as well as learning interests, you may want to invest in online courses, university courses, language immersion opportunities, or books that will teach you grammar and vocabulary. If you want to do self-study at home, online courses are available if you just do a simple search on the internet. You may also look through your local bookstore for self-study books, although it may take a couple of tries before you find one that really suits your needs.

Here are some free resources for learning simple sentences and grammar in Arabic. LookLex contains several free lessons on greetings, counting, and handling hotel and restaurant scenarios in Arabic. Madinah Arabic is another free resource with many lessons, a discussion forum, and a vocabulary application section.

Cantonese Chinese translation online can be done with a variety of free programs, most notably Google Translate. You can choose to translate either simplified or traditional Cantonese characters into their equivalents in any other language, or from any language into simplified or traditional Chinese. It is important to note that written Chinese is practically the same for every dialect of Chinese. In other words, translating written English into written Cantonese yields the same written result as translating written English into written Mandarin.

Translating something from English into spoken, romanized Cantonese is a little trickier since everyday spoken Cantonese contains a lot of words/sounds such as “ga”, “la”, “ah”, and “ma” attached to the end of sentences that don’t necessarily exist in Mandarin. The best way to get an accurate, spoken translation from English to Cantonese is to ask native Cantonese speakers through online forums. This website hosts such a forum where people can submit questions and get answers almost immediately. A simple search on the internet will reveal more of these forums where Cantonese speakers gather. Another alternative is to post your question in Yahoo! Answers.

If you want to translate the romanized Cantonese into the actual Chinese characters or vice versa, you can use Cantonese Phonetic IME. It is available to download for free on the website. It covers several systems of Cantonese Romanization, including Yale, LSHK, and Sidney Lau, so it helps to be proficient at one of these systems.

Professional Chinese Cantonese translation services are available as well. One such service is provided by Trusted Translations, Inc. Trusted Translations, Inc. specializes in more complex and specific Chinese translations for customers’ various legal, financial, business, government, media, medical, and technical needs. Their professional translators can cover any subject matter.

For more information about Cantonese Romanization systems and tones, see the articles about Cantonese tones, Chinese phonetic translation, learning Chinese Cantonese, learning to speak Chinese online, and learning Cantonese software.

Chinese translation online can be done with a variety of free programs, most notably Google Translate. You can choose to translate either simplified or traditional Chinese into any language, or from any language into simplified or traditional Chinese. You can translate whole webpages, news articles, song lyrics, and more.

Google Translate allows you to translate back and forth between over 50 different languages. Google Translate is quite accurate and includes even some popular slang or colloquialisms. However, no online translator will be perfect, but Google’s developers are constantly working to improve the quality of Google Translate by gathering, analyzing, and comparing large data sets of already translated Chinese material online and enlisting the help of Chinese language specialists.

Not only is Google Translate a good service, but if you use the Google search engine and Chinese webpages that you can’t read are listed in the results, you can translate the page into English instead of turning away from that search result. The translations are usually very good and you’ll be able to make sense of the webpage after the translations.

Another Chinese translation tool can be found at MandarinTools. This resource is similar to a dictionary in that you can look up the pronunciation and definition of words. You can look up the simplified or traditional character by searching for the pinyin or actual English word, or you can input the Chinese character and get an English definition or Romanization. You can match your search as a whole dictionary field, at the start of the dictionary field, at the end of the dictionary field, or anywhere within the dictionary field. This tool is quite flexible and it is almost guaranteed you will find whatever you are looking for no matter what format it is in.

Another tool that allows you to look up Chinese, English, or pinyin is (http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php). You can search in many different formats. Some general rules must be followed in order for this service to work. Pinyin words should be entered without spacing in between. They can be entered with or without the tone numbers. Double quotes are used to group search terms together so that only entries where those terms show up together will appear. The asterisk “*” can be used as a wildcard in the search. This tool is flexible and is worth playing around with to see what kinds of words show up in the search.

Still other tools help you translate from pinyin into simplified or traditional Chinese. These tools are meant to be used for typing Chinese online, but for our purposes, they can also be used merely for translation. If you can view Chinese characters, then you can also type them without installing any extra software.

Whether you are looking for a serious translation or from Chinese to English or vice versa, the Chinese translation services introduced in this article can be useful in finding what you need. Many times, it is also interesting to see what types of wildly inaccurate translations you can find because as of today, no single translation tool is perfect.

Cantonese is one of two main spoken dialects of Chinese that exist. The other dialect, Mandarin, is the more widely used dialect and covers most people in mainland China, Singapore, and Taiwan. While Cantonese is limited to several cities in the Guangdong province and the special administrative regions Macau and Hong Kong, there are still many reasons to learn Cantonese.

Cantonese is more preferred in the places already mentioned previously, which are the more westernized places in China that are popular for sight-seeing, jobs, or even potential relocation. Cantonese is also usually the operating language for business in southeastern China. Additionally, Cantonese is very commonly spoken in many Chinese communities outside of China. Namely, large Cantonese communities have formed in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities in the United States, as well as in Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. Cantonese communities also number various places in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Now that you may be convinced to learn Cantonese Chinese, you may be wondering if there are any good resources available since the dialect seems so limited to specific niches of the world. The good news is that reading and writing in Cantonese is the same as reading and writing in Mandarin, and since Mandarin is the number one most widely spoken language in the world, there are undoubtedly tons of resources for learning to read and write Chinese for free. Many of these resources are covered in other articles about Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese. A good place to start learning to read and write would be Mandarin Tools (http://www.mandarintools.com/shufa.html).

On the other hand, learning to listen to and speak Cantonese will be different from listening to and speaking Mandarin, since Cantonese tones and pronunciation is different from Mandarin tones. In brief, Cantonese has 6 (some people say 9) tones compared to Mandarin’s 4 tones. In both Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, mastering the tones is important because if the wrong tone is used, you are probably saying a completely different word than what you really meant to say. Cantonese tones are not set at specific pitches but rather at relative pitches indicated by whether your voice is falling, rising, staying level or any combination of those.

This site has wonderful audio resources for learning the Cantonese tones and the Yale Romanization of many Cantonese words. http://www.chinese-lessons.com/cantonese/soundsIndex.htm Once you become familiar with the sounds of the words and have a preliminary understanding of the different tones, this site contains a chart that helps you remember how to distinguish among the tones. http://wenfang.wordpress.com/2007/08/16/cantonese-tones-and-how-to-remember-them/

Seven of the tones are distinguished by a difference in pitch, while two are distinguished by a difference in length.

Another resource for Cantonese tones can be found at http://cantonese.ca/tones.php. A resource for learning basic Cantonese sentences and phrases can be found here http://chinesebay.com/cantonese/basic.asp. The expressions are accompanied by Romanization and audio files to help you with your pronunciation.

You can find Cantonese help sheets and other resources at this site http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/ as well.

Learning to write Chinese is one of the hardest parts of learning the Chinese language. Chinese words are not made up of a logical, phonetic alphabet. Instead, there are thousands of characters and each character has its own form which must be memorized individually and practiced by hand consistently. Fortunately, there many free online resources to learn to write Chinese since Chinese is the number one most widely spoken language in the world. But before you begin to learn to write Chinese from online resources, there are some basic elements you should know. These elements are radicals and strokes.

Lack of an alphabet makes the Chinese character system appear a bit disorganized to the beginner level learner, there is a method to the madness. A good understanding of Chinese radicals, or any of the 214 ideographic elements used to form, categorize, and sometimes to identify Chinese characters, will help greatly. For a complete list of the 214 radicals, visit this website. For more information on radicals in general and how their role in the Chinese language, see here.

In addition to radicals, stroke order of the character you are learning is also important to memorize. Proper stroke order leads to correct form of the character you are trying to write. The Chinese written language considers balance, proportion, and form of the character to be very important. An ugly Chinese character will almost always be frowned upon. There are several basic rules to keep in mind when practicing stroke order. For a step-by-step guide to better understand stroke order, see this About.com guide. You can also refer to other Chinese-related articles for more resources.

After you’ve got the basics down, this zhongwen.com has a variety of tools to help you learn about writing Chinese. There is a section with frequently asked questions such as how foreign names are written and how Chinese words are created. There is also a link to writing Chinese characters that reviews in detail some common strokes used in the majority of the characters and the importance of stroke order.

Learning Chinese Online has many links to help with pronunciation, characters, grammar, and more. There are also guides for learning how to type Chinese online. If you can view Chinese characters, then you can also type them without installing any extra software. InputKing is an online input system that gives you all the Chinese characters with the pinyin you provide. If you know pinyin very well and are familiar with the characters by sight, this tool will be useful for you to write Chinese online quickly and accurately. Another similar tool can be found here.

When practicing writing Chinese characters, it is useful to have a character sheet handy because writing the characters within the boxes or gridlines in the sheets will help you proportion and balance your characters. For samples of character sheets that you can print and use, see this site.

Yet another great tool for learning how to write Chinese characters and strokes is Mandarin Tools.

Constant exposure by reading Chinese materials and flashcards and writing practice will steadily improve your ability to read and write Chinese characters. There is no shortcut for learning a language as complex as Chinese, but there are numerous tools ease the process and make it more fun and rewarding. For more resources and information, please visit the other Chinese-relates articles.