Arabic language tutorial for beginners. Arabic for beginners - interesting facts and recommendations

- you can find many useful materials in different languages and in 12 weeks to upgrade your Arabic on your own.

Good phonetics textbooks:

5) Kovalev A.A., Sharbatov G.Sh. "Textbook Arabic» The introductory phonetic course describes in detail the position of the organs of speech during the pronunciation of all sounds and there are exercises for practicing.
6) Lebedev V.G., Tyureva L.S. “Practical course of the Arabic literary language. Introductory course ”It also describes in detail the position of the organs of speech when pronouncing all sounds and there are exercises for practicing.

Recipe

7) Arabic language. Recipe. Alphabet, reading, writing (Publishing house "Dilya"). All letters of the Arabic language in all positions in the word.
8) “Kharisova G.Kh. Arabic script” Also excellent script.

9) Imran Alawiye Arabic without tears. The manual is beautifully designed, the most common font is given.

Core skills resources (reading, writing, speaking, listening):

The Arabic language historically began to flourish in the world thanks to the development and spread of Islam as one of the largest world religions. Arabic is known to be the language of the Quran, the Holy Book of Islam. it main language Muslims.

What is interesting to know for everyone who is going to learn Arabic for beginners

1. Where Arabic is spoken

Arabic language - official language 22 countries and is the native language of more than 200 million people geographically residing from southeast Asia to northwest Africa, better known as the Arab world.

"Classical" Arabic, known as the language of the Qur'an, is the language in which the Qur'an is written and is the base language for the syntactic and grammatical norms of modern Arabic. It is this classical Arabic that is taught in religious schools and in all Arabic schools around the world.

"Modern Standard" Arabic is similar to classical, but easier and simpler. It is understood by most Arabs and is broadcast on TV, it is spoken by politicians, it is studied by foreigners. Most Arabic newspapers and modern literature use Modern Standard Arabic.
Arabic spoken language has many different dialects. So, for example, a native Iraqi would have difficulty understanding a local Algerian and vice versa, as they speak perfectly different dialects. But both of them will be able to communicate with each other if they use modern standard Arabic.

2. What any of us already know about the Arabic language

A lot of words came to us from Arabic, and we all know them, for example:

قطن, coton
سكر, sugar
غزال, gazelle
قيثارة, guitar
الكحول , alcohol
صحراء , Sahara
قيراط , carat
ليمون , lemon

Arabic uses the same punctuation as any other foreign language, such as English, but Arabic has slightly different punctuation marks, such as a reversed comma (،) or a mirrored question mark (؟).

3. How difficult is it to learn Arabic

Difficulties in pronunciation

Many sounds in Arabic are pronounced in a throaty way, as if they are formed deep inside the throat - therefore, practice is required to learn how to pronounce them correctly.

Order of words in a sentence

Any sentence in Arabic begins with a verb, so to say "the boy eats an apple" you need to say "the boy eats an apple":
اكل الولد التفاحة .

Adjectives are placed after the noun:

السيارة الحمراء - red car

Sentences are written from right to left, so the first page of the book, for us Europeans, will be considered the last.

4. How Arabic for beginners can help in the future

Arabic belongs to the Semitic group of languages, therefore it has much in common with languages such as Amharic, Hebrew. Therefore, for those who can learn Arabic, other languages of the Semitic group will be more understandable.
Languages such as Persian/Farsi, Urdu, Kurdish and others use the Arabic alphabet which is used in the writing of their own languages. Therefore, those who comprehend Arabic from scratch will be able to read the written words and sentences of any of these languages, but not understand the meaning.

1. Determine exactly what your goals are for learning Arabic for beginners.

As we wrote above, there are several types of Arabic: Modern Standard, Classical and Colloquial Arabic. Each type is responsible for its own goals.

2. Master the Arabic alphabet

At first glance, the alphabet seems to be the most difficult and incomprehensible moment for those who decide to take up the Arabic language. Some even try to avoid studying it and memorize only the pronunciation or transliteration of Arabic words. This method will bring many problems in the future. It would be much more useful, on the contrary, to ignore the transcription, and to learn the spelling of words. Therefore, to learn Arabic for beginners quickly, learn the alphabet.

3. Learn to use Arabic vocabulary.

Using an Arabic dictionary is very difficult at first, but after clarifying the main points and some practice, it will not be difficult.
First, it must be taken into account that all words in the dictionary are used in their original forms, while in texts they occur in derived forms.
Secondly, the dictionary structure itself has root system, that is, the root of the word is considered as the search word. The roots in the dictionary are located in alphabetical order. That is, to find the word istiqbaal (registrar), you need to know the three-letter root of this word - q-b-l, that is given word will be in the dictionary under the letter q.

4. We study Arabic constantly.

In order to quickly learn Arabic, you need to study it constantly. If you have internet, then you can learn Arabic online. There are many resources online for self-study Arabic. You can buy textbooks with audio recordings, listening to which you will be imbued with the language and absorb the pronunciation. Many tutorials like learning Arabic from scratch offer interesting mnemonics for memorizing Arabic words.

5. Ask a tutor for help.

After graduating from the 10th grade, I went to Dagestan for the summer holidays. Usually there you are constantly surrounded by relatives. But one day I stayed in Makhachkala, left to my own devices. And went for a walk around the city. This was probably my first independent walk in a foreign city. I walked along Hamidov Avenue towards the mountains. And suddenly, I saw a sign "Islamic shop". No matter how strange it may seem, but my first acquisition in Dagestan was the Arabic script.

Arriving at my uncle's house, I opened it. There were all kinds of writing letters and their pronunciation was explained in relation to the Dagestan alphabet "The letter ع approximately corresponds to the Arabic gI", "The letter ح is similar to the Avar xI". Together with ظ, these were the most difficult letters for me, because it was hard to imagine how to pronounce them, and the others were mostly in my language. So I started learning to read Arabic on my own. An ordinary Russian teenager, far from religion. Then I went to the mountain village of my grandfather. It was a time filled with events of transitional age, when you try a lot for the first time. Along with all this, I tried and learn Arabic. What motivated me when I then bought this prescription is still mystical for me.

Recently I found my first attempts to write in Arabic, which I started just that summer in my grandfather's village. (If you click on the screenshots, they should enlarge. Not for the faint of heart, I warn you).

Then, already in the 4th year of university, I began to pray, began to go to the mosque, and met Muslims. One Friday in the mosque, I said hello to one of my friends:

Assalamu alaikum! How are you? What are you doing?
- Wa alaikum ssalam! Alhamdulillah. Here, I study Arabic.
- How do you study? Are there any courses?
- No, on your own, according to the textbook "Learn to read the Quran in Arabic."

Then this brother went to Kazan to study and there he got new textbooks, and he sold Lebedev's books "Learn to read the Koran in Arabic" to me for 500 rubles when he returned from Kazan for his first vacation.

I worked part-time as a night security guard in a store and took this book with me on duty. I started reading it in my free moments between the fights of the local drunkards and until I was cut down by sleep. It was worth starting to get acquainted with the book, as I thought - "Subhanallah, this Arabic language is so easy to learn."

My delight knew no bounds. I finished the first book in a month. I didn’t even memorize the words there - I just carefully studied the new rules and read the exercises for them.

Then another textbook fell into my hands (I already wrote about it in the post "Pencil writing to the brain). I began to learn a lesson a day (they are very small there). I just memorized new words in the morning - and then repeated them all day (on the bus, while walking, etc.) After a couple of months, I already knew almost 60 lessons by heart - all the words and turns of speech that met in them.

After 2 months of classes, I was visiting an Arab and was surprised to find that I can communicate in Arabic without speaking a word in Russian!!! It started out as a joke. I said hello in Arabic and my friend answered. Then I asked something else and he answered again in Arabic. And when the dialogue began, as if there was no turning back. As if we did not know Russian. My knees were trembling with happiness.

Previously, I had to learn the Koran "photographically" - stupidly remembering the order of all the letters in words. For example, it took me several days to memorize Surah An-Nas. And after I have mastered the basics of grammar, you can read the translation of Krachkovsky and the Arabic text of the verse once (comparing the translation to each Arabic word), repeat a couple of times - and the verse is remembered. If so, walk through a small sura (like An-Naba "News"). After half an hour of study, I can look at the translation of Krachkovsky and read the sura in Arabic (essentially from memory). The most difficult thing is usually to remember the order of the verses.

My tragedy is that having learned to read (it took about two months on my own and unsystematic), I simply did not imagine that it was possible to spend the same amount of time to learn the basics of grammar and, if you make an effort and develop an active vocabulary- you can speak Arabic very soon.

The most a big problem for many people is that they imagine the language as an impregnable fortress, the assault and siege of which will take many years. And only after that you will master it. In fact, learning a language is better thought of as a small cottage that you build piece by piece. Having studied the basic grammar (changing verbs by person and tense, changing cases, etc. - in terms of volume this is a brochure of 40 pages) - consider that you have poured the foundation. Further, an opportunity arose - they built a room where you can already live and moved there. Then - the kitchen. Then they built a living room, a nursery, and all the other rooms. I saw how they build houses in Dagestan in this way. Instead of renting an apartment, they buy an inexpensive plot, pour the foundation and build at least one room, where they move. And then, as far as possible, they continue to build a house on an already filled foundation.

If suddenly someone wants to repeat my path, which I consider optimal for those who do it mostly on their own, for example, in their free time from their main studies or work, I have prepared a selection of materials (now they have become more accessible, and better).

→ (reading and writing tutorial with voice acting for each word and lots of hints)

2. Fundamentals of grammar. To study grammar, it is better to arm yourself with many books and choose the one that suits you best. The same rule can be given different words in different books - so that you can consider incomprehensible moments from different sides. Start with one book, and download the rest as needed.

→ Lebedev. Learn to read the Quran in Arabic - an unobtrusive explanation of the basics of grammar using the example of verses from the Quran (I personally went through the first volume. I hated studying foreign language all my life, but I read this book as fiction, and realized that Arabic is mine).

→ - compressed volume of 40 pages gives all the basics ( brief summary any textbook).

→ . A new solid textbook, contains the basics of grammar with numerous examples, as well as the basics of morphology. Very accessible language and sparing volume.

→ (I didn’t pass it myself, but I heard reviews from friends).

→ (A classic of the genre. Usually it is used as a reference where you can find any grammar question).

I think these books should be enough with a margin. If you don’t like it, google Kuzmin, Ibragimov, Frolova and others.

3. Build an active vocabulary.

→ . - Read carefully the preface to this book and you will understand everything. I really lived with this book for several months, until I learned 100 lessons (I just wrote about this in the article "Pencil Writing to the Brain"). If you repeat "my feat", feel your closeness to the Arab world - no kidding.

4. Practice the language.

→ Get to know the Arabs, try to communicate with them. For example, you can search the mosque for students who have just arrived in Russia and do not speak Russian well. If you are hospitable and not intrusive, then you can establish very warm friendly relations. You will be able to learn the language directly from the native speaker.

→ Learn how to type in Arabic (). So you can google materials that are interesting to you, your favorite nasheeds on YouTube, etc. You will be able to immerse yourself in the Arabic Internet, participate in their forums, discussions, make friends on FaceBook, etc.

You can bookmark the second part of the article, here is the link

Which is gaining popularity every year. The study of the Arabic language has its own characteristics, which is associated with the structure of the language itself, as well as with pronunciation and writing. This must be taken into account when choosing a program for training.

Prevalence

Arabic belongs to the Semitic group. In terms of the number of native speakers for whom it is native, Arabic ranks second in the world after Chinese.

Arabic is spoken by about 350 million people in 23 countries where the language is considered official. These countries include Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Palestine and many others. Also, the language is one of the official in Israel. Given this factor, the study of the Arabic language involves the preliminary choice of the dialect that will be used in a particular country, since, despite many similarities, in different countries language has its own distinctive features.

Dialects

Modern Arabic can be divided into 5 large groups of dialects, which, from a linguistic point of view, can almost be called different languages. The fact is that the lexical and grammatical differences in languages are so great that people who speak different dialects and do not know the literary language can hardly understand each other. There are the following groups of dialects:

Magribskaya.
Egyptian-Sudanese.
Syro-Mesopotamian.
Arabian.
Central Asian.

A separate niche is occupied by modern standard Arabic, which, however, is practically not used in colloquial speech.

Features of the study

Learning Arabic from scratch is not an easy task, because after Chinese, it is considered one of the most difficult in the world. It takes much longer to master Arabic than to learn any European language. This also applies to classes with teachers.

Independent study of the Arabic language is a difficult path, which is better to refuse at first. This is due to several factors. Firstly, writing is very complex, which does not look like either Latin or Cyrillic, which is written from right to left, and also does not provide for the use of vowels. Secondly, the very structure of the language, in particular morphology and grammar, differs in complexity.

What to look for before starting the study?

The program for studying the Arabic language should be built taking into account the following factors:

Having enough time. It takes several times more time to learn a language than to learn other languages.
Opportunities for both independent work, and for classes in a group or with a private teacher. Learning Arabic in Moscow gives you the opportunity to combine different options.
Inclusion in the learning process of different aspects: writing, reading, listening and, of course, speaking.

We must not forget that you need to decide on the choice of a particular dialect. Learning Arabic is different depending on this factor. In particular, the dialects in Egypt and Iraq are so different that their speakers cannot always understand each other. The way out of the situation may be to study the Arabic literary language, which has a more complex structure, but is understandable in all countries of the Arab world, since dialects traditionally have a more simplified form. Despite this, this option has its own negative sides. Although the literary language is understood by all countries, it is practically not spoken. It may happen that a person who speaks a literary language will not be able to understand people who speak a certain dialect. In this case, the choice depends on the purpose of the study. If there is a desire to use the language in different countries, then the choice must be made towards the literary version. If the language is studied for work in a particular Arab country, but preference should be given to the corresponding dialect.

Vocabulary

The study of the Arabic language is impossible without the use of words and phrases, which in this case have characteristic differences in comparison with European languages. This is due to the fact that in Europe the languages intertwined and strongly influenced each other, due to which they have many common lexical units. Almost all vocabulary of the Arabic language has its original origin, which practically cannot be connected with others. The number of borrowings from other languages is present, but it occupies no more than one percent of the dictionary.

The complexity of the study also lies in the fact that the Arabic language is characterized by the presence of synonyms, homonyms and polysemantic words, which can seriously confuse people who are starting to learn the language. In Arabic, both newer words and very old ones are intertwined, which, at the same time, do not have definite connections with each other, however, they denote almost identical objects and phenomena.

Phonetics and pronunciation

Literary Arabic and its numerous dialects are characterized by the presence of a very developed phonetic system, in particular, this applies to consonants: guttural, interdental and emphatic. The complexity of the study is also represented by all sorts of combinatorial possibilities of pronunciation.

Many Arab countries are trying to bring the spoken pronunciation of words closer to literary language. This is connected primarily with the religious context, in particular with the correct reading of the Koran. Despite this, on this moment there is no single point of view on how to read certain endings correctly, since ancient texts do not have vowels - signs for denoting vowel sounds, which does not allow one to correctly state how exactly one or another word should be pronounced.

Arabic is one of the most widely spoken and also one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world. The difficulty lies in a special writing without the presence of vowels, multi-level morphology and grammar, as well as a special pronunciation. An important factor in learning a language is also the choice of dialect, since the Arabic language sounds very different in different countries.

Modern technologies simplify our life in all its aspects, now there is no need to sit for hours in libraries or look for the right textbook in bookstores. For everyone who is interested learning Arabic, we offer a selection of interesting helper sites.

English-language sites

alison.com. An introductory online course in the study of the Arabic language.
oli.cmu.edu . Arabic for Global Exchange. Online course of 10 lessons to gain basic knowledge of the Arabic language and culture.
online prescription. Learn how to write Arabic letters and compounds.
prescription . Laid out in PDF format, easy to print and can be used for offline training.
prescription . Arabic alphabet. In addition to a brief training course by writing, it has many sections devoted to Arab culture and the life of Arab countries.
mylanguageexchange. International service. On the site, you are looking for a native speaker who will help you learn his language, and you, in turn, help him learn your native language. Site navigation is simple, the interface is made in the most popular languages of the world, but there is no Russian version. Conditions and methodological base are available: a library of materials, a block for notes, text chat and a chat for pronunciation training, vocabulary games, etc.
interpals.net. A social network that helps people from all over the world find friends and learn a language through communication. Easy navigation, quick registration service, short questionnaire, forum and chat.
arabicPod. Arabic language podcast from scratch to English language, 30 lessons of 10 minutes, facilitators use contemporary topics to review.
survival Phrases Arabic(IoS). The audio course contains useful phrases for communication in real situations.
Arabic from scratch. video lessons. English language course from the University of Dalarna (Sweden), 15 lessons (6-14 min).

Russian-language sites

ar-ru . Dedicated to the comprehensive study of the Arabic language: alphabet, letters, pronunciation of sounds, grammar, reading, training exercises. Except educational material The site has articles on different topics: Arab scholars and politicians, Islamic holidays, helpful tips and entertainment programs and audio recordings.
busuu.com. largest social network teaches to read, write, understand and speak. The courses are developed by professional linguists. The work is based on the principle of mutual learning. Registration is free, but some services are paid. There is a mobile version and an application for IoS, GooglePlay.
italki.com. An online service that helps you find a professional native speaker by curriculum vitae, reviews, and price. Russian-language navigation. You need to register, registration is free, choose a language, choose a teacher from the list, evaluate the reviews and agree on a Skype lesson schedule.
lang-8.com. Modern interface, simple and convenient. Registration is free, after which you are offered to write a post in a foreign language that you want to study, it is checked by a native speaker and then checked by a native speaker. Useful for spell checking and semantic analysis.
lingq. Self-learning language service, there are exercises for vocabulary, reading, pronunciation, grammar and speaking. Errors are corrected by the program. There is paid content - the service of a curator-carrier.
livemocha.com. A virtual online community based on the principle of mutual assistance in learning foreign languages, there is a free and paid version. Convenient interface, fast registration.
hosgeldi. Designed to perform training exercises for memorizing vocabulary. Simple and easy to use.