First the basics...Arabic is read from right to left, and so when you open a book, you would start with the spine on the right and turn the pages to the right. Check it out in the picture of my text book and notebooks.
Anyway, we've been starting with the alphabet and learning all the sounds. I must say my untrained ear is having a hard time distinguishing between ح and ھ. They both are a "ha" sound, but the first one is deeper, more from the throat, and the second is light, like a hahaha sound. Anyway, those aren't the only sounds I'm having trouble with, but that is an example.
Another helpful hint when trying to read Arabic... (which, I'm not sure why you would try to read it...but still...this is my lesson!) :) The letter shape changes depending on where in the sentence it falls. The beginning of the word has a different shape than the middle and the end is different too. Oh, and there's letters that don't connect to each other, and if there is one more letter after a non-connecting one in the word, that shape is still a different shape.
All that to say...I'm learning slowly but surely.
Alright for your first lesson.....
The word is bint. It's pronounced bin-t. It means girl. (I would show you the Arabic script for it, but apparently blogger doesn't like when I copy and paste things from a document.)
I have a bunch of other words I'm working on too, that are examples of the letters in each of the different shapes (you know, the different shapes they take depending on placement in the word).
Today we finished the alphabet and so tomorrow and next week we will be moving on to verbs and their conjugations!
Here's to hoping I can somehow manage to wrap my brain around this language and somehow train my ear to hear the different, but very similar sounds. :)
Did you remember that word from our Rosetta Stone studying days? :) I can still hear that woman saying that word....
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