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Reading Arabic 'hard for brain'
BBC News ^
| 9/4/10
| Katie Alcock
Posted on 09/04/2010 10:40:08 PM PDT by Nachum
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1
posted on
09/04/2010 10:40:14 PM PDT
by
Nachum
To: Nachum
Reading Arabic 'hard for brain'
Well, yes - it looks like writhing snakes.
2
posted on
09/04/2010 10:43:17 PM PDT
by
Spirochete
(Just say NO to RINOs)
To: Nachum
The Black Speech of Mordor kills brain cells.
3
posted on
09/04/2010 11:03:10 PM PDT
by
TigersEye
(Greenhouse Theory is false. Totally debunked. "GH gases" is a non-sequitur.)
To: Nachum
“Ultimately, they would like to work out how to teach Arabic reading better to children, including helping them to tell letters apart and how to remember which sound goes with which letter.”
Why? Immersion in arabic shuts down the right hemisphere and renders it unusable after a time. It causes permanent brain damage.
Just look at obama. That is why clerics must learn the koran in the original arabic and they are incapable of logic or abstract thinking and have no sense of chronology.
4
posted on
09/04/2010 11:31:33 PM PDT
by
MestaMachine
(De inimico non loquaris sed cogites- Don't wish ill for your enemy; plan it)
To: Nachum
It doesn't help that the language is written right to left, always in script and containing letters with initial, medial and finial forms. Comprehensively written Arabic has all the vowel marks included. Colloquial printed Arabic as used in newspapers omits the vowel marks. As in English, a practiced reader can discern the correct meaning even with omissions. "If u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb". A new learner has to contend with learning the syntax and semantics of the spoken language AND a new written script. That's a big wall to climb. Arabic also adds the complexity of being different depending on the gender of the person addressed and implementing this variant by inflection within a word. Asking a female if she understands Arabic is (phonetically) intee tarfee Aribee. Directed to a male it becomes, intave tarfee Aribee. The "r" is always "rolled or flapped".
I find Mandarin Chinese to be much easier to handle than Arabic. At least for the spoken language. The pictographs are a huge learning curve by themselves, but actually independent of the spoken language. The written form is understood by Mandarin and Cantonese speakers, yet their spoken language is vastly different.
5
posted on
09/04/2010 11:34:55 PM PDT
by
Myrddin
To: TigersEye
The Black Speech of Mordor kills brain cells. +1
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
To: The Comedian
Plus one? I was saving that brain cell. :-(
7
posted on
09/04/2010 11:57:11 PM PDT
by
TigersEye
(Greenhouse Theory is false. Totally debunked. "GH gases" is a non-sequitur.)
To: MestaMachine
The future tense is difficult in Arabic. It principally relies on periphrastic phrases in place of a clearly identifiable verb tense. That forces a broader command of the language to express a future tense. In a poorly educated society, that translates to few expressions with a forward looking aspect.
The Koran is one of the few documents that is written with full vowel marks throughout. The makes it a good text for a beginner to read. Too bad it is loaded with vile content.
I have a 1588 translation of the bible in Welsh. It was the source document that the Welsh used to preserve their language as the English sought to suppress it. They were forced to work 6 days a week, leaving only Sunday for worship and preserving their language. That was the origin of "Sunday School" in the Christian churches. I find it instructive an interesting to compare a King James translation side by side with the 1588 Welsh version that predates it. My next best "side by side" is a Harry Potter book. Even with my feeble command of Welsh I can see differences in wording in the Welsh Harry Potter book.
8
posted on
09/05/2010 12:00:41 AM PDT
by
Myrddin
To: TigersEye
Are you missing a brain cell? I’m retired and I don’t use mine any more. Let me know if you need a few.
P.S. No warranties. :)
To: Myrddin
Sounds like you speak several languages. I’ve never been able to learn anything but English, which has always sort of bothered me.
10
posted on
09/05/2010 12:27:02 AM PDT
by
I still care
(I believe in the universality of freedom -George Bush, asked if he regrets going to war.)
To: Myrddin
The whole lack of vowels as well as the right-to-left writing is also found in Hebrew as well.
And it is a real pain in the butt for newcomers to learn without vowels. Which is why I gave it up and learned Korean.
Which has it’s own problems (like frequently dropping the subject in sentences, so you don’t know who their talking/writing about).
11
posted on
09/05/2010 12:46:27 AM PDT
by
gogogodzilla
(Live free or die!)
To: gogogodzilla
The whole lack of vowels as well as the right-to-left writing is also found in Hebrew as well. And it is a real pain in the butt for newcomers to learn without vowels. Which is why I gave it up and learned Korean. Which has its own problems (like frequently dropping the subject in sentences, so you dont know who their talking/writing about). I have studied both Korean and Hebrew but I think I know Hebrew a bit better (mainly due to the fact I studied it consistently for a couple of years at a local synagogue). :)
12
posted on
09/05/2010 1:48:04 AM PDT
by
Tamar1973
(Germans in 1932 thought they were voting for change too.)
To: Nachum
Arabic is not especially hard, just different. Unlike English, the letters that are written are pronounced. The lack of written short vowels is difficult at first but once you learn the root word and measures system, you can begin to pick out the pattern. There are only a handful of letters not used in the English alphabet. Most of them are just pronounced in the back of the throat.
The colloquial language can be even easier or more difficult, depending on the region. However, English beats any language in the use of colloquial terms.
اللغة العربية ليس صعبة.
13
posted on
09/05/2010 4:56:13 AM PDT
by
Azeem
(The world will look up and shout "Save us!"... And I'll whisper "No.")
To: gogogodzilla
Korean is a Turkic language. Of course it has a very different lettering
scheme from the latin or cyrillic forms used in Turkey. You might find it
pretty easy to add to you linguistic capability if you have a good command of Korean. A key concept in Turkish is vowel harmony. The first vowel in the word sets rule for the rest. It is very consistent compared to the front/back vowels of Irish Gaelic. Welsh is comparatively simple. You pronounce everything. The letter ‘y’ is a vowel that is pronounced two ways depending on where it is present in a word. In a final syllable it has the long E as in the English word “see”. In initial or medial syllables it has the “schwa” like the leading “u” in “under”
14
posted on
09/05/2010 8:55:08 AM PDT
by
Myrddin
To: Nachum
I speak a little Arabic, but aside from numbers, I can't read it at all. I know what my name looks like from business cards that are English on one side and Arabic on the other and I have a cartouche.
I haven't tried to learn...I guess I could if I felt the need.
But I don't. ;-)
15
posted on
09/05/2010 8:59:52 AM PDT
by
Allegra
(Pablo is very wily.)
To: gogogodzilla
so you dont know who their talking/writing about You've just unwittingly highlighted one of the problems that foreigners have with English. But I still like English best as a method of communication.
16
posted on
09/05/2010 9:55:06 AM PDT
by
Defiant
(Conservatives love the Constitution. Democrats love changing the Constitution.)
To: I still care
Sounds like you speak several languages. Ive never been able to learn anything but English, which has always sort of bothered me. My wife speaks 13. 20 years ago I was a complete monoglot, my high-school German having withered from disuse.
But on a lark I took a year of Latin -- it was an eye-opener and *really* helped when I started learning Gaelic a few years later, even though the languages are unrelated and *extremely* different.
The biggest difficulty with reading Arabic, as far as I can tell (I am slowly learning the Farsi alphabet which is similar but seemingly a bit simpler) is that letters often come in three forms: initial (beginning a word), medial (within a word) and terminal (end of the word). They're all related, but modified for cursive-like writing.
17
posted on
09/05/2010 5:35:43 PM PDT
by
sionnsar
(IranAzadi|5yst3m 0wn3d-it's N0t Y0ur5:SONY|TV--it's NOT news you can trust)
To: AdmSmith; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; bigheadfred; blueyon; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; ...
Thanks Nachum.
[child to father in 2050] “Dad, what was ‘Arabic’?”
18
posted on
09/08/2010 7:49:29 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(Democratic Underground... matters are worse, as their latest fund drive has come up short...)
To: TigersEye; Nachum
The Black Speech of Mordor kills brain cells. حلقة واحدة للحكم عليهم جميعا عصابة واحدة للعثور عليهم حلقة واحدة لتحقيق كل منها ، وفي ربط لهم الظلام
19
posted on
09/08/2010 10:13:32 PM PDT
by
grey_whiskers
(The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
To: sionnsar
My wife speaks 13. 20 years ago I was a complete monoglot, my high-school German having withered from disuse.But on a lark I took a year of Latin -- it was an eye-opener and *really* helped when I started learning Gaelic a few years later, even though the languages are unrelated and *extremely* different.
I am *DEEPLY* respectful and jealous.
(Congrats to you for landing such a fine woman...)
Cheers!
20
posted on
09/08/2010 10:17:01 PM PDT
by
grey_whiskers
(The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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