The Textbook Safety Net?

سَلامة

root: س-ل-م / verbal noun of form I / meaning: safety, security

Not long after I had paraded across the stage at my graduation, a shiny, new Arabic textbook was delivered to my door and I felt an engulfing sense of relief—ahh, structure.

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Explaining “Although”

تَفسير

root: ف-س-ر / verbal noun of form II / plural: تَفاسير / meaning: explanation

The phrase “بالرغم مِن أنّ ــــــ إلّا أنّ ـــــــ” means “although”–but how do we actually use it and what goes where?

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Arabic Observations: Word Twins

تَوْأَم

root: ت-و-ء-م / noun / plural: تَوائِم / definition: twin

You notice many things when you look at the pages of Hans Wehr more than you see daylight.

And time and time again, I’ve noticed this one phenomenon which I call (in my head) “word twins”.

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Arabic Headline Analysis

تحليل

root: ح-ل-ل / verbal noun of form II / plural: تَحليلات or تَحاليل / definition: analysis

Sometimes you might see a news headline in which you understand all of the words, yet you can’t make enough sense of the grammar to get to the meaning. And sometimes you just don’t know the words.

So I thought that it might be a good idea to take a random Arabic headline from the week and pick apart each word and enough grammar to understand it. Shall we begin?

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Is Motivation Enough?

دافِع

root: د-ف-ع / active participle of form I / plural: دَوافِع / definition: incentive, motive

I think it’s now been over eight months since my last Arabic lesson at university, which feels very odd to think about. It’s almost felt like I’ve just been on a long summer break this whole time, with that abstract “September” forever flying off further into the distance.

This stretch of time, though, has opened up some space for reflection and self-evaluation.

One major reassurance for me is the fact that I still have the motivation to study or revise Arabic–in one form of another–every day. But that has raised a question in my mind: is motivation enough?

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Different Ways to Learn Vocabulary Through Association

عَلاقة

root: ع-ل-ق / noun / plural: علاقات or عَلائق / definition: association, relation, connection

There are some words in your target language that will cling on in your memory and others that will dig in their heels and refuse to go any further than the “vaguely familiar” section of your brain.

For those stubborn words, you’re going to have to put in a little more effort to help them migrate to your long-term memory. And one of the most effective ways to do that is through the technique of association.

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Small but Useful Arabic Phrases That You Need To Know

مُفيد

root: ف-ي-د / adjective / definition: useful, beneficial

As much as most of us, as Arabic students, love to learn all sorts of complex and specific vocabulary, knowing the small, simple stuff that fills up sentences is really important too.

So, below, I’ve made a fairly compact list of small but useful Arabic phrases that you’ll find to be really common:

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The Best Arabic Podcast I’ve Found So Far

اِستِماع

root: س-م-ع / verbal noun of form VIII / definition: listening

Listening skills are essential to build when you’re learning a language. But for many students, it can be hard to find listening resources that are: (a) at the right level and (b) interesting enough to maintain your focus.

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The Dialect Dilemma

مُعْضِلة

root: ع-ض-ل / noun / plural: مُعضلات or مَعاضِل / definition: dilemma

Imagine studying a language for years in a classroom. You can give presentations and write essays in that language (with moderate reliance on the dictionary), and you can read newspaper articles and understand the news (with, realistically, slightly more reliance on said dictionary).

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The Importance of Getting Things Wrong

خَطَأ

root: خ-ط-ء / noun / plural: أخطاء / definition: mistake, error

It’s happening again. A wave of fear crashes down mercilessly upon the trembling students. Eyes dart desperately, frantically, around the room. One student scrambles out of class, mumbling something about needing the bathroom. The sky darkens. Another pretends to drop their pen as an excuse to seek refuge under the desk. A lifeless pigeon falls past the window. Everyone has suddenly developed an obsessive interest in the colour of the margins on their paper—

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