My Journey with Arabic:

As part of my learning project assignment from the course EDTC 100, I was tasked to document my development and process in learning a skill. I needed to ensure that use of technology was used in undergoing this process. I decided to learn the Arabic language even though it is such a daunting task. I found the experience to be a mixture of therapeutic and also challenging. I say therapeutic because it delved into a passion of mine which was to understand the Holy Quran. Anything which enables me to connect with my religion has always been spiritual and therapeutic for me. On the other hand, I had an expectation that this learning goal was not going to be easy and I was correct about that. This language is extremely ancient and vast in rulings and methodologies. Different scales of words lead to different meanings even though the root letters may be the same. In addition to that, the language is memorization heavy and requires many hours in repetition.

Recap:

Learning Arabic:

• Rational and reason behind learning Arabic
• Concise learning framework of how to achieve this learning goal

Intro to verbs: 

• Intro to past and present word forms.
• Memorizing conjugations.

More verbs:

• Exploring point of views in verbs
• Exploring active and passive voice in verbs

My trial with Duo lingo:

• Trying a new online resource in learning the language
• Working towards forming sentences and filling in the blanks

New words!: 

• Memorizing new words to enhance Arabic vocabulary.

Intro to Nahw: 

• Commencing a new and discipline in Arabic known as Nahw or Arabic grammar.
• Understanding the categorization and different rulings between a particle,noun, and verb.

Nahw: lets learn about nouns!

• Recognizing the various categories of nouns which are described as jamid,mushtaq, and masdar
• Understanding its rulings and effects to the grammar of a sentence.

Nahw: types of verbs:

• Understanding the types of verbs in a sentence
• past tense, present tense, command, negative command

Intro to numbers: 

• Learning numbers from 1 to 10
• focusing on pronunciation, memorization and writing

10 to 100:

• Memorizing numbers from 10 to 100
• ensuring pronunciation is correct along with writing.

Some feedback from fellow classmates:

Regarding Duolingo:

Chassidy: Hi, I have used Duolingo and I think it is such a cool tool to use! I think this program is something that would be amazing to use in the classroom and it is awesome to see others using it in their learning journey!

Alycia:

Hey Hanzalah,
I love that you are using duolingo! I used it in a French class in high school and recently to learn Greek before my honeymoon to Greece! It was super helpful and i love that it is interactive.
The app does ask some interesting questions before you begin but I also really like the question about the purpose of you learning the language. I think it helps tailor the content to your personal use and needs!
I am glad you had a good experience with the app!
Alycia

Regarding Arabic language:

Alyssa: I think it’s cool that you are learning Arabic! It’s also cool that you are ensuring that you learn how to write it at the same time. Good luck with this learning project!

Makenna: This is so awesome! I took a French class last year and conjugating verbs for me was the hardest thing. It seems like you have a very good grasp on it and it also looks like you are learning so much already!

Final thoughts:

From the begging of this journey; I knew that I wont be able to achieve mastery or even an intermediate level of understanding from this learning project. The skill requires full time study and many years of dedication. In terms of Arabic grammar, I had covered 10% of the subject. Verb conjugations approximately 25% and vocab about the same. Ultimately, my goal and purpose of this skill was to understand the Holy Quran. I would have to say that I am still in the beginning stages of that and much progress has been achieved.

What really effected my scope of knowledge was the use of technology in this project. I never thought it be possible to learn a language online. I had always thought that it is an in-person task not meant for digitization. However, this class enabled me to see that I was wrong. There was a plethora amount of resources for me to undertake this task.

Looking on forward as a future educator, I see the value and potential of technology. I hope to investigate the technological side of concepts and lessons and understand the possible integration in my teaching. Essentially, technology is no doubt the future and I understand that its utilization is the future of education.

After the getting a grasp of numbers 1 to 10, I though it be essential to cover the numbers from 10 to 100. I had realized that in this stage, the process of learning will be similar in nature; however there will be much memorizing. To begin my journey, I once again took to the internet to see if there are any number charts. I was able to find this resource helpful and below is an excerpt of the resource:

Again, in learning these numbers, I felt it necessary to write the numbers and get used to the written component of Arabic. I have provided an image below to to demonstrate some of my written component:

I then moved on to ensuring that the my pronunciation becomes better for the numbers. I of course resorted to YouTube as it allows me to understand it the way it ought to be understood.

I then resorted to mass memorization of the Arabic numbers. Starting from 10 to 20 and then taking a break after memorizing that. Then I would add 5 more numbers and start again from 10 to 25. I would continue this strategy until I would reach 100.

I also provided a an excerpt of a recording regarding my pronunciation:

For the next part of the learning project, I wanted to get into learning Arabic numbers. For this lesson, I was unsure of how to go about learning the numbers as it was not present in the grammar resource mentioned previously. Hence, I did a google search and found this amazing resource to be very helpful.

My first encounter with the resource forced me to dive into the writing style of the numbers:

It reminded me of roman numerals and I assume that there may be some historical connection. Nevertheless, I decided to write the numbers and get a introductory grasp of the written component of Arabic

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Once I got a hang of writing the numbers, I had began the pronunciation of the numbers. I found it difficult to pronounce the numbers from the English transliteration and therefore look towards auditory methods of listening the numbers. The video below  provided to be excellent in speaking and pronouncing the words.

Finally after learning to write and pronounce the numbers one to 10, I had decided to memorize the numbers. Memorization was quite easy for me as I had a decent experience in memorizing vocabulary. Therefore, numbers from 1 to 10 were not of much difficulty.

In continuation of chapter 1.3, the second part of the chapter still remains to be learnt from this resource.

Previously I had learned the types of nouns known as jamid, mushtaq, and masdar. I had also learned how to identify such nouns and what are the rulings associated with them. The second part of the lesson focuses on identifying the types of fi’ls (verbs).

Below is the image of the second part of the lesson and please refer to section/chapter 1.3 of the resource above.

In terms of fi’l (verbs) there are four types that I had learned. This part of the lesson correlates to my previous lesson (refer to this blog post). The image below summarizes Arabic verbs taken from this website:

:

For this lesson I had focused on the first part of Arabic verbs which highlighted the four types of verbs:

1. Madi (Past tense) which refers to actions done in the past. Example: kataba = he wrote
2. Mudari’ (Present tense) refers to actions ocurring in the present moment. Example: yaktubu = he is writing or writes.
3. Amr (Imperative) refers to verbs which command someone to do something. They are under the category of present tense. Example: uktub = write. This example is commanding the person to do something or in this case to read.
4. Nahi (prohibitive) command which command someone to not do something. Words in this category must have a specific harf (particle) known as “Laam nahi” before the word. The harf is pronounced as “La” in a given example. Example: La taktub = Do not write. Here the person is prohibiting someone else from writing.

I had also viewed this resource prior to doing the exercise. it gives an overall idea of the lesson and reinforces the concepts learnt:

Exercises:

uktub:

Amr  – Command.  meaning is “Write!”

La tadhhab:

Nahi  – Do not go

yashrabu:

Present Tense –  “He drinks” or “He is drinking.”

fataha:

Past Tense – Meaning “He opened.”

isma‘:

Amr  – Command meaning “Listen!”

Moving on from the previous lesson, I decided to shift towards the first part of chapter 1.3. and increase my understandings of Nahw.

Previously, I had learned the objectives of learning Nahw in addition to the differences of kalimah’s and kalam. I also learned the three types of kalam which are ism (noun) f’il (verb) and harf (particle). I had learned its definitions and done some exercises.

For this lesson, the previous knowledge is a requirement as I will now begin to learn the types (Aqsam) of isms.

Images of the lesson are take from this resource and are below. Please refer to section 1.3 of resource if images are not clear:

The first part of the lesson will discuss the types of nouns. This resource also further explains this part:

I learned that there are 3 types of nouns in Arabic.

1. Jamid –  This is a noun that is its own word and not a derivative of another word. This word also does not cause derivatives to other words. In other words, it is a self-sufficient word.  Example: bayt – house. This example is a word that does not have any connection to another word.

1. Masdar – This is a root word which many other words derive from. The key of words being derived from one another is to look at the root letters. Example: darsan = to study and its root letters are d-r-s. From these root letters, various other nouns will be derived from which contain the same root letters.

1. Mushtaq- This is a noun which is derived from another word. Example: madrasah = School. the word which it came from is darsan = to learn/study. The root letters as mentioned previously is d-r-s. Therefore madrasah is a derivative of the word darsan with its root letters being d-r-s. Madrassah also classically translates to place of learning/studying.

Another part of the lesson is identifying root letters. This resource is a little bit advanced however the first 4 minutes refer to this lesson. The first point in identifying the root letters is to recognize that most words in arabic have 3 root letters. The second point is to recognize that if a word has four letters, then there are most likely some extra letters added. Those extra letters tend to be the letters of waaw (w), alif (a), or yaa (y). The words below contain some exercises to test this knowledge.

Exercises:

• kitab (book) –  mushtaq word which masdar is katban (to read).  k-t-b are its root letters
• kitab (writer) – mushtaq word taked from masdar katban (to read), k-t-b are its root letters.
• maa (water) – Jamid word which has no derivative forms. m-a-a are the root.
• ilm (knowledge) – masdar word as it has many different word forms such as yalamu (he knows). root letters are i-l-m.

For this post, Unfortunately I happened to get behind in my learning project blog post. Life got the better of me and also sprinkle of procrastination.  Nevertheless, I decided to catch up this week and made an effort take on more than one lesson. This post will showcase the first lesson I have learnt this week.

Referring back to me educational journey of learning Arabic, the previous lesson focused on increasing my Arabic vocabulary. Since I had made some effort in learning verb conjugations and translating some sentences using Duo-lingo. I thought to cover a more difficult topic which is Arabic grammar known as “Nahw”.

The resource I will be using for grammar is called Tasheel-an-Nahw (Grammar made easy). I decided to cover the chapter 1.1 and 1.2 with the exercises as shown below (If blury please refer to the link ch. 1.1 and 1.2) :

The first part of the lesson discovers the reason of why grammar is studied. it is to learn how to correctly form a sentence.  then I had learned the difference between a word (kalam) and a sentence (kalimah). In addition I had learned the concept of “Iraab” which tells us the grammatical state of the word (Usually demonstrated by the vowel of the word).

It also speaks about the goals of why grammar should be learned which is ultimately to understand the Quran from the Islamic perspective.

now moving onto chapter 1.2.

This chapter begins to discuss the definitions of the three types of kalam. This resource although abut advanced helps in understanding this lesson.

1. Ism – Noun: modern definition is a person,place, or thing. Classical definition mentions that it is a word which requires another word for it to make sense in a complete sentence. Example: rajulun = A man. This example is not a complete sentence and requires more words to form a sentence
2. Fi’l – Verb: modern definition is that it means to do some action. Classical definition is that it does not need another word for it to be a sentence. Example: jalasa = He sat. This example is sufficient as a complete sentence.
3. Harf – Particle : It is a word which requires an ism and/or a fi’l for it to be understood. Example: man = who. This example requires another word such as “who does” for it to be understood in a sentence.

I than decided to work on the exercise to ensure my understanding of the lesson. Answers are below.

Q1:

i. verb ii. particle iii. noun iv. verb

The other exercise refers to a different lesson hence I did not complete it.

This week I decided to shift gears and enhance my Arabic vocabulary. I realized that being independent from constantly referring to the dictionary can only get me so far in learning this language and understanding the Quran. Therefore, I felt it necessary to take a break from verbs and verb conjugations and move towards a lighter lesson.

I focused on learning vocabulary which commonly occur from the Quran. the following video sheds more light up on learning vocabulary.

This short video provides a comprehensive list of 85% of words in the Quran. I made an effort to memorize the words provided in the video. Now when I look at the Quran I can see that I understand many words in the Quran. Although I am still struggling with translating full sentences in the Quran, understanding the words still allows me to understand the context of some of the sentences.

Last week we did a deep dive into learning and memorizing the past tense and present verb forms of Arabic with the verb fa’a’la (meaning is to do). I also learned how the point of views and pronouns are embedded in the verb and the last letter is the indicator. One example I forgot to include last week is the following: http://<img src=”blob:chrome-untrusted://media-app/394d7fb5-a7f7-41cf-8b1f-1b52c23dbc1b” alt=”Screenshot 2024-10-08 10.25.16 PM.png”/>

The colored letters/word which are paired for each verb are the translations. The last letter of the Arabic is the determining factor for the pronoun.

This week I decided to continue on with the next stage of learning Arabic verbs. I learned the verb conjugations for the present and past tense verbs along with learning the active and passive forms of the verbs. This online resource was very helpful in this regard. If you were to read through the sections of active and passive, then this would give an idea of what I have learned.

Nevertheless I still would like to provide an example of my learning.

Active past tense verb:

كَتَبَ – He wrote 

Passive past tense verb:

كُتِبَ – he/it was written

Hence, I learned and memorized the entire verb conjugation for both sections.

This week for my learning project, I decided to begin by learning basic verb forms and memorizing them. I had spoken with an experienced Arabic teacher and he referred me to memorizing the “mudari” (present tense) and Madhi (past tense) verb forms for the verb fa’a’la “to do”. I had also memorized the first person/ second person/ and third person point of views. In Arabic, I learned that this is embedded in the verbs of Arabic.  In addition, I learned that the pronouns are embedded in the last letters of the verbs. All of this Weill be seen in the online resource below:

https://www.madinaharabic.com/arabic-language-course/lessons/L028_001.html