The language marathon is almost over. Honestly it’s a bit discouraging to see how other people with English or my favourite Italian are improving, and how slow I am with my Jordanian dialect. I feel I’m staying the same, and often comparing how I might succeed with my Italian or refining German or Turkish within the same period and started to hesitate if my goals were set right, or not. Sometimes I think it is for nothing as there’s still a lot to learn even for A1 level reaching. Arabic is not for someone who wants to conquer fast, and I’m impatient and blaming myself for being slow, yet unfortunately I can’t memorize more than 3-5 words a day.
Anyway, the last week was about "language polishing". The task was to find your own personal difficulty with the language you study, and overcome it. At first, I’ve chosen to check the chart with the broken plural patterns, and go through them, yet I’ve been told that in Jordanian Arabic this pattern doesn’t work that well, so I have decided to go through the grammar rules of the Levantine dialect, choose what’s applicable for the Jordanian Arabic and make notes.
I have used Colloquial Arabic (Levantine) by Leslie J.McLoughlin. The book uses transliteration, slightly different from what I’m using, and there were parts of the book I had to go through with a native speaker, to make sure I am not learning it wrong. It's a solid book yet you need a native speaker to check your exercises, as it's written for the whole Levantine dialect, not for a Jordanian dialect specifically.
I should say it was a helpful and productive week, I have understood how to make imperative forms, how to conjugate verbs in past and present tense, including hollow and doubled verbs, and had the introductory part about the forms of Arabic verbs.
I also watched more of Youtube videos made by CGE Jordan Institute for Arabic Studies, related to grammar and useful words in Jordanian Arabic. If you still haven't wathed them, I highly recommend. It doesn't cover all grammar aspects but it's helpful and even fun.
I should say it was a helpful and productive week, I have understood how to make imperative forms, how to conjugate verbs in past and present tense, including hollow and doubled verbs, and had the introductory part about the forms of Arabic verbs.
And I’m still learning my Most Used Jordanian Arabic Words list on Memrise. I’ve collected this list with the help of my local friends (telling thanks to them again!), and I should say it’s one of my most useful things I’ve done during this year: prepare a list of top words in Jordanian dialect with audio. It took me a while yet it’s something I’m using every day, and I can’t see other option how I could learn Arabic words without Memrise app. I’m getting the correct pronunciation and also using this list as a reference for writing in Arabic. If you are learning Jordanian Arabic at the moment, you can join me, it’s free, you need just to download the app on your mobile.
So, by the end of the 10th week of studying Arabic I’ve got an idea how complex and hard this language is, what I have to do next, what grammar rules I didn’t cover yet and understand the time and efforts I have to put for my Arabic studies better. What’s your difficulty for now?
It’s one of my most useful things I’ve done during this year: to prepare a list of top words in Jordanian dialect with audio.
Oh, and I've also finished a miniphrase: Most Used Arabic Phrases in Jordanian Arabic with audio, transliteration for beginners and Arabic hints. You can also use it for free on Memrise.
