Comments | linguaphiles: persian and arabic?

midwest85 in linguaphiles

persian and arabic?

Oct 13, 2009 10:10

Hello ( Read more... )

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wiped October 13 2009, 22:09:01 UTC

it is certainly doable, but can be confusing and more difficult than studying just one at a time. there is a large number of false friends between the two languages, such as هندسه ("engineering" in arabic, but "geometry" in persian) that can confuse you, and it can be hard for beginners to remember that many of the letters represent different sounds as well-- thus قاضی "judge" is pronounced roughly [qæ:dˤi] (qadhi) in standard arabic and [ɣɒzi] (ghaazi) in persian ( ... )

thanks wiped October 14 2009, 01:34:01 UTC

thanks everyone for the advice/encouragement ( ... )

Re: thanks wiped October 14 2009, 02:38:19 UTC

french is definitely important (and german can be helpful too) for MES. speaking or writing french is not at all necessary, you just need to be able to read, so if you can already do that, then you're set. my field is iranian literature, specifically the relationship between poetry and the state in the persianate world. but i'm personally also interested in contemporary history and politics of the region, so i've studied a few other relevant languages as well.

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desert_sky October 14 2009, 17:12:29 UTC

I have a little website with Arabic vocabulary lists and grammar lessons here. It isn't totally comprehensive -- there are still sections I need to add -- but it has a decent amount of information, including both standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic. (The grammar lessons mainly cover the Egyptian dialect, not standard Arabic.) You can also try looking through this Arabic Resources links page.

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desert_sky October 15 2009, 05:31:58 UTC

Glad I could help! El 3afw. :)

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