Learn Arabic from scratch! Secrets of self-learning Arabic Learning Arabic.

Whether you want to devote your life to studying Muslim customs, conduct business in the United Arab Emirates, or want to visit Jerusalem for tourism purposes - in any case, knowledge of the Arabic language will be useful to you.

Arabic alphabet. Video lessons

Arabic for beginners and intermediate. Visitors will find grammar lessons, stress and conjugation rules on the channel. There is an online dictionary and video lessons with the Arabic alphabet, tips for learning the language. The founders of the page did not disdain entertaining methods of learning the language, so on the channel you can find videos with poems with subtitles and the like. A lot of educational information: among the videos you can even find translations of Russian names into Arabic.

On the pages of the YouTube channel, the student will find materials for conquering the Egyptian dialect of Arabic, and online tests. It’s convenient that the presenters’ comments are in Russian - a Russian-speaking user does not need to know another foreign language to learn Arabic. The channel will help you learn Arabic for business and teach you competent business communication.

Arabic at Shams School Irada Mersalskaya

A huge variety of videos for mastering the initial level of the Arabic language - much attention is paid to the alphabet on the channel. Vocabulary and grammar are taught, and carefully compiled video dictionaries will help you expand your vocabulary. The learning process is made easier by dividing the videos into topics.
The listener will need knowledge of the English language, since the presenter’s explanations are in English.

Arabic at the Arabic Language School

The channel is aimed at those who are beginning to learn the Arabic language. Even those who have barely started learning will understand the materials, including the Arabic alphabet for children to master the Arabic language.
This is a simple yet high-quality video tutorial. Great emphasis is placed on mastering grammar, and if the student wishes, the channel will help in studying the Koran.

Arabic with "Brothers and Sisters"

Will be useful for beginners. Channel visitors will be able to watch video materials to learn the Arabic alphabet and reading rules. In addition to educational videos, the channel contains many videos for getting acquainted with the language and the Muslim way of life. There are videos and commentaries about Islam, interpretation of the Koran. Training in Russian.

Arabic by Daniyar Chormoshev

The author of the channel will help you master the initial level of Arabic. The teaching area included grammar, pronunciation, the Arabic alphabet and its features. Visitors to the page will be able to find valuable tips - for example, on memorizing Arabic words and phrases. Comments on the lessons are in Russian.
In addition to educational materials, the channel contains many educational videos about Muslim life, customs and rules. Comments in these videos are most often in Arabic.

Arabic with Ummanews

A lovely teacher named Zariyat will help everyone who wants to master the initial level of Arabic over the course of twelve lessons, in high quality, in detail and in Russian. Explanations are written on a white board with a black felt-tip pen, and the good quality of the image leaves no doubt about a particular symbol. Together with Zariyat, students will be able to master Arabic grammar, pronunciation, alphabet and features of some letters.

Arabic with Arablegko portal channel

The channel published unique materials from a course on teaching Arabic using the methods of Elena Klevtsova. Comments on the educational materials are in Russian, so knowledge of any intermediate language is not required. On the page you can find an online dictionary of the most frequently used Arabic words, grammar, and the teacher also pays special attention to a complex topic - the difference between similar sounds in Arabic words.

“Arabic no problem!”

The channel contains educational videos designed to introduce a novice user to the Arabic language and customs of the countries in which it is declared the official language. Visitors to the channel will become familiar with frequently used expressions in Arabic, will be able to learn how to behave in typical situations and communicate correctly with the local population.
Training and comments in Russian. The lessons are designed for beginners. The videos consist of clear and memorable presentations.

Arabic with Shammus Sunshine

On the channel, the visitor will find training videos for beginners who want to get acquainted with the language. Through videos in the form of easy-to-understand presentations, the student is introduced to basic Arabic words and expressions. The channel will help in learning the language for both beginners with level A knowledge and those who have reached level B. Lessons will teach you how to communicate about colors, vegetables, fruits, stationery, travel, antonyms, animals, the location of rooms and much more, as well as put it all into competent sentences . The videos consist of clear presentations that teach listening comprehension and introduce complex Arabic writing.

Arabic with Speakit (Prologmedia)

For those who are able to understand the language without Russian comments. Subtitles make it easier to understand. Temperamental presenters will help you master the most common standard phrases in Arabic.
The channel also contains many videos for practicing speaking in Chinese, German, English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and many other languages.

Arabic with Ahmed

On his page, a friendly Arab named Ahmed will introduce you better to the Arabic language. The videos will help beginners. The author of the channel will help everyone who wants to learn personal and demonstrative pronouns in Arabic, teach them how to use the masculine and feminine, singular and plural.
Visitors can expect lessons on politeness in Arab countries, pronunciation training and instructions on how to construct sentences. On his channel, Ahmed will tell you how to learn a foreign language as quickly as possible and share some other useful tips.

Arabic with Irada of Mersal

For the visitor's attention - useful collections designed to help learn Arabic. The author of the channel will talk about Arabic verbs of the past and present tense, personal pronouns, introduce sounds and letters, and the most commonly used words. Guests of the channel will be able to find tips on learning Arabic on their own. Comments in Russian.

Arabic grammar

Concise but clear lessons of the Arabic language for those who are starting to study it and want to consolidate the basics or lay them down. The author of the video will tell you about grammar in detail: prepositions, adverbials, predicates, idafa, parts of speech and members, and will teach you how to parse sentences.
Training is in Russian, visual information is conveyed through clear presentations.

Which is gaining popularity every year. Learning Arabic has its own characteristics, which are related to the structure of the language itself, as well as pronunciation and writing. This must be taken into account when choosing a training program.

Prevalence

Arabic belongs to the Semitic group. In terms of the number of native speakers, Arabic ranks second in the world after Chinese.

Arabic is spoken by about 350 million people in 23 countries where the language is considered an official language. These countries include Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Palestine and many others. Also, the language is one of the official ones in Israel. Taking this factor into account, learning Arabic involves a preliminary selection of the dialect that will be used in a particular country, since, despite many similar elements, the language has its own distinctive features in different countries.

Dialects

Modern Arabic can be divided into 5 large groups of dialects, which from a linguistic point of view can practically be called different languages. The fact is that the lexical and grammatical differences in languages ​​are so great that people speaking different dialects and not knowing the literary language practically cannot understand each other. The following groups of dialects are distinguished:

• Maghreb.
• Egyptian-Sudanese.
• Syro-Mesopotamian.
• Arabian.
• Central Asian.

A separate niche is occupied by modern standard Arabic, which, however, is practically not used in colloquial speech.

Features of the study

Learning Arabic from scratch is not an easy task, since after Chinese it is considered one of the most difficult in the world. Mastering Arabic takes much longer than learning any European language. This applies to both classes with teachers.

Studying Arabic on your own is a difficult path, which is best avoided at first. This is due to several factors. Firstly, the letter is very complex, which is not similar to either the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet, which is written from right to left, and also does not involve the use of vowels. Secondly, the structure of language itself, in particular morphology and grammar, is complex.

What should you pay attention to before you start studying?

A program for learning Arabic should be built taking into account the following factors:

• Having enough time. Learning a language takes several times longer than learning other languages.
• Opportunities for independent work, as well as for classes in a group or with a private teacher. Studying Arabic in Moscow gives you the opportunity to combine different options.
• Inclusion in the learning process of different aspects: writing, reading, listening and, of course, speaking.

We must not forget that you need to decide on the choice of a specific dialect. Learning Arabic varies depending on this factor. In particular, the dialects in Egypt and Iraq are so different that their speakers cannot always understand each other. A way out of the situation may be to study the Arabic literary language, which has a more complex structure, but is understandable in all countries of the Arab world, since dialects traditionally have a more simplified form. Despite this, this option also has its negative sides. Although the literary language is understood by all countries, it is practically not spoken. A situation may arise that a person who speaks a literary language will not be able to understand people who speak a certain dialect. In this case, the choice depends on the purposes of the study. If you want to use a language in different countries, then the choice should be made towards the literary version. If a language is studied for work in a specific Arab country, preference should be given to the corresponding dialect.

Vocabulary of the language

Learning Arabic is impossible without using words and phrases, which in this case have characteristic differences in comparison with European languages. This is due to the fact that in Europe languages ​​intertwined and strongly influenced each other, due to which they have many common lexical units. Almost all the vocabulary of the Arabic language has its original origin, which practically cannot be associated with others. The number of borrowings from other languages ​​is present, but it takes up no more than one percent of the dictionary.

The difficulty of learning also lies in the fact that the Arabic language is characterized by the presence of synonyms, homonyms and polysemantic words, which can seriously confuse people who are starting to learn the language. In Arabic, both newer words and very old ones are intertwined, which do not have specific connections with each other, but denote almost identical objects and phenomena.

Phonetics and pronunciation

Literary Arabic and its numerous dialects are characterized by the presence of a very developed phonetic system, in particular with regard to consonants: glottal, interdental and emphatic. Difficulty in learning is also represented by all sorts of combinatorial possibilities of pronunciation.

Many Arab countries are trying to bring the spoken pronunciation of words closer to the literary language. This is primarily due to the religious context, in particular to the correct reading of the Koran. Despite this, at the moment there is no single point of view on how to correctly read certain endings, since ancient texts do not have vowels - signs to indicate vowel sounds, which does not allow us to correctly state how exactly this or that word should be pronounced.

Arabic is one of the most widely spoken and also one of the most difficult languages ​​to learn in the world. The difficulty lies in the special letter without vowels, multi-level morphology and grammar, as well as special pronunciation. An important factor when learning a language is also the choice of dialect, since Arabic sounds very differently in different countries.

After finishing 10th grade, I went to Dagestan for the summer holidays. Usually you are constantly surrounded by relatives there. But one day I was left in Makhachkala, left to my own devices. And he went for a walk around the city. This was probably my first independent walk through a foreign city. I walked along Gamidov Avenue towards the mountains. And suddenly, I saw a sign “Islamic shop”. No matter how strange it may seem, my first acquisition in Dagestan was an Arabic script.

Arriving at my uncle's house, I opened it. There were all types of writing letters and their pronunciation was explained in relation to the Dagestan alphabet “The letter ع approximately corresponds to the Arabic gI”, “The letter ح is similar to the Avar xI”. Together with ظ, these were the most difficult letters for me, because... it was hard to imagine how to pronounce them, and the others were mostly in my language. So I began to learn to read Arabic on my own. An ordinary Russian teenager, far from religion. Then I went to my grandfather’s mountain village. It was a time filled with the events of adolescence, when you try a lot for the first time. Along with all this, I tried to learn Arabic. What moved me when I bought this recipe is still mystical for me.

I recently found my first attempts to write in Arabic, which I began just that summer in the village with my grandfather. (If you click on the screenshots, they should enlarge. The spectacle is not for the faint of heart, I warn you).

Then, already in my 4th year at university, I started doing namaz, started going to the mosque, and met Muslims. One Friday in the mosque I said hello to one of my friends:

Assalamu alaikum! How are you? What are you doing?
- Wa alaikumu piss! Alhamdulillah. Here, I’m studying Arabic.
- How do you study? Are there any courses?
- No, on your own, using the textbook “Learn to read the Koran in Arabic.”

Then this brother went to Kazan to study and there he got new textbooks, and he sold Lebedev’s books “Learn to Read the Koran in Arabic” to me for 500 rubles when he returned from Kazan on his first vacation.

I worked as a night security guard in a store and took this book with me on duty. I started reading it in my free moments between the fights of the local drunks and until I fell asleep. As soon as I started getting acquainted with the book, I thought: “Subhanallah, this Arabic language is so easy to learn.”

My delight knew no bounds. I finished the first book in a month. I didn’t even memorize the words there - I just carefully studied the new rules and read the exercises for them.

Then I got my hands on another textbook (I already wrote about it in the post “A pencil that writes in the brain”). I began to simply study a lesson a day (they are very small). I simply learned new words in the morning - and then repeated them all day (on the bus, while walking, etc.) After a couple of months, I already knew almost 60 lessons by heart - all the words and figures of speech that were found in them.

After 2 months of classes, I was visiting an Arab and was surprised to discover that I could communicate in Arabic without speaking a word in Russian!!! It started out as a joke. I said hello in Arabic and my friend answered. Then I asked something else and he answered in Arabic again. And when the dialogue began, it was as if there was no turning back. It was as if we didn’t know Russian. My knees were shaking with happiness.

Previously, I needed to learn the Koran “photographically” - stupidly remember the order of all the letters in words. For example, it took me several days to memorize Surah An-Nas. And after I have learned the basics of grammar, I can read Krachkovsky’s translation and the Arabic text of the verse once (matching the translation to each Arabic word), repeat it a couple of times - and the verse is remembered. If you go through a small surah like this (like An-Naba “The Message”). After half an hour of studying, I can look at Krachkovsky’s translation and read the sura in Arabic (essentially from memory). The most difficult thing is usually to remember the order of the verses.

My tragedy is that having learned to read (it took about two months on my own and haphazardly), I simply did not imagine that it was possible to spend the same amount of time learning the basics of grammar and, if you make an effort and develop an active vocabulary, you can speak Arabic very soon.

The biggest problem for many people is that they think of language as an impregnable fortress that will take many years to storm and siege. And only after that you will master it. In fact, learning a language is better thought of as a small cottage that you build piece by piece. Having studied basic grammar (changing verbs according to persons and tenses, changing cases, etc. - this is a brochure of 40 pages in length) - consider that you have laid the foundation. Next, an opportunity arose - we built a room where we could live and moved there. Then - the kitchen. Then they built a living room, a children's room, and all the other rooms. I saw how houses were built in this way in Dagestan. Instead of renting an apartment, they buy an inexpensive plot of land, pour the foundation and build at least one room where they move. And then, as far as possible, they continue to build the house on the already poured foundation.

If suddenly someone wants to follow my path, which I consider optimal for those who do it mainly on their own, for example, in their free time from their main studies or work, I have prepared a selection of materials (now they have become more accessible and better).

→ (self-instruction book on reading and writing with voiceover of each word and many tips)

2. Basics of grammar. To study grammar, it is better to arm yourself with many books and choose the one that suits you best. The same rule can be given in different words in different books - so that incomprehensible moments can be considered from different angles. Start with one book and download others as needed.

→ Lebedev. Learn to read the Koran in Arabic - an unobtrusive explanation of the basics of grammar using the example of verses from the Koran (I personally went through the first volume. I hated studying foreign languages ​​all my life, but I read this book as fiction, and I realized that Arabic is my language).

→ - a compressed volume of 40 pages gives all the basics (a brief summary of any textbook).

→ . A new thorough textbook, containing the basics of grammar with numerous examples, as well as the basics of morphology. Very accessible language and sparing volume.

→ (I haven’t tried it myself, but I’ve heard reviews from friends).

→ (Classics of the genre. Usually it is used as a reference book where you can find any question on grammar).

I think these books should be enough to spare. If you are not satisfied, google Kuzmina, Ibragimov, Frolova and others.

3. Develop an active vocabulary.

→ . - read the preface to this book carefully and you will understand everything. I actually lived with this book for several months until I learned 100 lessons (I wrote about this in the article “A pencil that writes into the brain”). If you repeat “my feat”, you will feel close to the Arab world - no joke.

4. Language practice.

→ Get to know the Arabs, try to communicate with them. For example, you can look for students in the mosque who have just arrived in Russia and speak Russian poorly. If you are hospitable and not intrusive, you can develop very warm and friendly relations. You can learn the language directly from a native speaker.

→ Learn to type in Arabic (). This way you can Google materials that interest you, your favorite nasheeds on YouTube, etc. You will be able to plunge into the Arabic Internet, participate in their forums, discussions, make friends on FaceBook, etc.

You can bookmark the second part of the article, here is the link

Speech plan.
Adding... editing...
If someone can read the Koran after this, the author is not to blame.
He had other goals, but - Good luck!

Different people have different ways of thinking, which is why, for example, engineers and philologists need to be taught foreign languages ​​in different ways. But in all foreign language textbooks, you can feel the same “dirty” German approach: unnecessary thoroughness, an abundance of unnecessary, stupid, unstructured information at the start, tediousness that kills mood and motivation after 5 pages and puts you to sleep after ten.

That is, it is often not the student’s fault, but the teaching system that “fucks up.”
It’s as if someone put a filter on those “unworthy” of this language.
And this is how the “cut-off” is carried out...
But why did they write a book for such a purpose, why was it called a “textbook”
and why did they sell you crap that is of little use for learning??,

And maybe then we should call such books not textbooks, but “turnstiles”
like, if you got through, you’ll go, if you didn’t get through, sit, smoke, and bamboo...

Existing textbooks are poorly designed for the thinking of a normal Russian person.
modern, not "outdated" version. When you are told obvious platitudes that have clearly been rewritten over the last 100 years, you feel like you've been caught...

The idea that you are smarter than your teacher, and the teacher is “acting out”, interferes with learning.

Perhaps philologists wrote textbooks - for people with a different background,
Perhaps the “background” of the average student has grown over 100 years
or the methods are outdated.
Maybe people who don’t know anything useful except languages ​​increase the value of their knowledge by making show-offs and meaningful snot - where everything can be explained more simply, on the fingers, faster and more interestingly.

Can a teacher be boring?
After all, language is a means of communication.
He already has a “credit” from a student who bought and picked up a textbook.
And if the author doesn’t pull it off, maybe it’s because he’s a bad teacher?

Let's take Arabic.
Most fears about learning Arabic stem from its written form.
Which the textbook teaches in such a way that... you begin to understand the Inquisition...

Often textbooks focus on layers of language - from Islam and the Koran.
On the experience of building communism. For what??

Or a rather aggressive imposition of alien (for Russian) person archetypes of behavior.
There is no need for Orthodox Christians and atheists to immediately give words meaning “namaz” and “Akbar”.

That is, these words must be present, but then, where their presence will be justified by the logic of teaching, and not just by the teacher’s desire to immediately “convert” the student to his faith. The student came for another. And the market says that you should respect your consumer.

The Arabic language gives precisely the Russian and Orthodox Christian the opportunity to touch the Biblical texts - in a different coordinate system. And understand the hidden meanings that (alas) disappeared without a trace in Russian translations - from Greek translations.

Eg. King Herod turns out to be the "king of the Earth." Ard and Herod (land) are spelled the same.
Bethlehem - (beit lahm) - turns out to be a sheep house, a barn.
The English Queen "Bloody Mary" turns out to be the "Mother of the State".
The Pharisees turn out to be ordinary Persians or horsemen. The Saducees are friends of the Pharisees,
Pharaohs turn out to be simply the leaders of these horsemen.

The possible meaning of the “new spelling” of the name Jesus (the appearance of the second letter “i”) during the Great Schism of the 17th century becomes clear - precisely as a result of the translation of Arabic texts into “Cyrillic”. the stroke under the consonant “and” is the second “and”, which is written but not necessarily read. And the main dispute of the split takes on a different logic and harmony.

2) Motivation.

There is such an “Old Belarusian language”. This is a language in which ordinary text in Old Russian is written in Arabic letters. Agree, it’s nice when, in the process of learning one modern language, you find yourself “in the load” as a speaker of another, and ancient one.
The laws of “Freebies” (sweets in Arabic) have not been repealed.
And the learning process turns out to be effective if you lead the student “from freebie to freebie.”))

So, to convey information, you need to write Arabic letters - from right to left.
consonants and long (stressed) vowels are written.
- there is no letter “p” in the Arabic alphabet, Arabs use the letter “b”
- the letter "g" is similar to the Russian one.
- the letter "i" twice. Once at the end of a word, the other in the middle. It can be seen by two points below it. The spelling is different, but these two dots “give it away”.
The letter "v" twice. Its writing anywhere (at the beginning in the middle, at the end - the same)

Vocalization rule
There are only 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet.
Strictly speaking, they are all consonants. Vowel sounds, and there are three of them, are transmitted by special icons that are placed above or below the letter, called “vowels”.
The vowels “a”, “i”, “u” are called “Fatha, kesra, damma”
A - stroke above the consonant
"and" is a stroke from below,
"u" - comma on top,
“without a vowel” - circle, “sukkun”,
"an" - two strokes
shadda "w" - doubling of a consonant.

This is how the previous sentence “let’s talk” -
will look like “Old Belarusian” with vowels.

In most cases, you will not find texts with vowels in Arabic books and media. Why? Because Arabs read and understand these texts perfectly even without vowels. This is comparable to when in Russian we encounter the letter “Ё” without dots, but we understand that it is “Ё”. This is experience and skill.

Vocalizations were developed by medieval philologists. One of the theories of their origin is this: in those days, a large number of people accepted Islam - without knowing the language. And so that “fresh” Muslims could read the Koran without errors, a system of vowels was adopted. Now vowels can be found mainly in textbooks, in Sacred texts (Koran, Bible), in reference books and dictionaries. But moving in this environment, anyone begins to read and understand texts without vowels at all.

Arabic writing allows us to better understand the speakers of Turkic, Iranian and Caucasian languages. And because Moscow is already the largest Tajik, Tatar and Azerbaijani city. And the second in the world - in terms of the number of Uzbeks, Jews and Chechens - it is advisable to have this just in case, let it be... Because this writing allows you to better understand the grammar of the language. After all, doubling, transferring vowels - there was historically justified by "Elm", but when written in Latin or Cyrillic - the logic turns out to be a little more complicated.

(show the strokes - and their mirror image in calligraphy.
Examples of abbreviations - based on Arabic script.)
The main thing is not to be afraid and to understand that the rejection of the Arabic language in the Russian cultural field may not have always been the case. One may discover that someone actually deliberately destroyed “Semitisms” (Arabisms) in Russian culture. You can see that many principles of Russian cursive writing/stenography amusingly repeat the laws of Arabic calligraphy (of course, in their mirror image).

Russian endings (for example, for adjectives) are written in Arabic not with 2-3 letters that do not carry information (-ogo, -ego, -ie, -aya), but are written in one short stroke. After all, the Slavic ancestors were not masochists when they left endings in their language that sometimes turned out to be longer than the word itself. In a word, the experience of the Arabic language is only an opportunity to regain what your ancestors had.

By the way, all European languages ​​can have such an “Arabic” experience. It is known that the most ancient documents of the Afrikaans language (which, excuse me, is the language of the Dutch settlers of the 17th and 18th centuries in Africa) were written in Arabic script. It is known that in the 20th century there were translations of writing into Cyrillic and Latin, after which in Russia and Turkey ALL documents written in ligature were destroyed.
That is, perhaps it is necessary not so much to “teach” as to try to “awaken” the subconscious.

Arabic script is not at all complicated, but it amazingly helps to “reveal” different ways of thinking in a person: analogue, creative, composite...

On the right in the picture you can see the Russian letter “ch”.
There is no such letter in Arabic.
It is in Persian, and the "ch" means when it has three dots at the bottom.
In Arabic there is this letter with a dot on top,
with a dot below,
and no point at all.

If this letter is written at the end of a word, then it looks like a “ch”, but if it is in the middle of a word, there is no lower “tail”.

That is, this letter with a dot on top means a hard “x”,
with a dot below - “j” (In Egypt, for some reason, this letter is pronounced “gh”, like the Ukrainian “g”),
without a dot - a light "x".
three dots below - “ch” and not in Arabic, but in Persian.

The main thing about this letter is the tail on top. the letter can be written in different handwriting, in different ways, but the “Tail” gives it away.

Although, once teaching the basics of economics to managers in one Bank, I discovered that top management did not understand the diagram at all, but could only read sequential text. That is, evolution has taken place - by washing out people with abstract thinking. Well... by the way, the bank is still quite afloat, although... I don’t keep a penny there... I don’t trust the “Managers”, whose whole virtue is the ability to “be shit”...

So if you are going to work with this category of people, give up the language in general and this method in particular, otherwise you will then have to stupidly hide a third of your brain in order to fit in with the “environment” and especially with your superiors.

In the end, when a crowd of Caucasian youth stops you in a dark alley, as a rule, this does not mean anything bad, except that there is a reason to drink together. And you need to know how to see this reason. And how to develop it correctly.

Here in the picture below are two Arabic words of three letters.
Of course, since we are learning Old Belarusian, it might be worth writing an Old Belarusian word of three letters, but the one who needs it will write it himself by the end of the lesson...
three letters are three troughs. The dots above the letter indicate that the first word is “BIT”, the second is BNT.”

As already mentioned, even without vowels, the Arab will guess
that these are the words Bayt - house (hamsa and two sukkun - in vowels),
and Bint - a girl (kesra and two sukkun).
With vowels - two words will look like this.

I draw in Adobe with a mouse, if you don’t like it, draw it yourself.
Pencil, paper, sharpener - go ahead.
Beautiful handwriting for many is sufficient aesthetic satisfaction,
to practice Arabic. But we are talking about the harmony of language in general here,
and not so much his handwriting.

4) There is no need to feel complex about your lack of knowledge of the Arabic language in front of today’s speakers of Arabic culture.

Firstly, all the Arabs you are interested in (for one reason or another) speak Russian or English. And English will be objectively more comfortable for them to explain the terms of European culture. The Arabic language is an opportunity to touch Arab culture in general, and not to a specific person in particular.

Secondly, we must understand that the Arab culture of the Middle East is, after all, rather a young culture. Its renaissance in the Middle East began only at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. And when you get acquainted with the works of German and Russian Arabists (Krachkovsky’s four-volume work), you see and understand that at the end of the 19th century, the centers of study of the Arabic language and the Koran were Berlin, Kazan, St. Petersburg... And not Cairo and Damascus . And Jerusalem and Riyadh began to be considered the historical center of Arab culture only in the second half of the 20th century... and before that, an ordinary Arab in the desert in the morning washed himself with camel urine, jumped on a camel, and wandered to the neighboring oasis. And the harsh desert life then left no room or resources for higher manifestations of culture. This is neither good nor bad. Walk through museums in Arab countries to understand the meager and dreary life of nomads - even half a century ago.

My teacher, a KGB officer, once gave advice that was very appropriate in that situation - not to try to translate your life into Arabic. University, cinema and clubs are images of another culture for which another language would be better suited.

It’s more useful to come up with an “image” of an Arab and tell it from him. It is the language of nomadic peasants and has 70 words for camel and 5 verbs for “to think.” No need to complicate...
May I have 5 brothers and 6 sisters,
your father has three wives and three houses.
It’s easier to learn from an authentic map than to make it out of thin air, as if to delicately call “airborne troops”, “potatoes”, “privatization” and “investment banking business”, which are absent from Arab culture.

So, the first principle of memorizing letters is “Shemakha”.
As the hero of Pushkin’s fairy tale said: “Reign while lying on your side”...
There are many Arabic symbols - you can memorize them by tilting your head to the right or to the left.
For example, the “European” numbers 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 are frankly of Arabic origin. It’s just that someone “messed up” and recorded them while sitting “too left” - from the source.

Some letters are also recognized - for example, the letter "sod", "to", "fa".

The second principle is the difference between syllables with vowels "a" and "o".
Arabs consider "a" and "o" as one vowel,
They have different consonants with which the syllables “sa” and “so” begin.
That's why they have two consonants - where we have one.
And there are two different letters - “t”, “s”, “d”, “th”, “z”. One of them is “front” - after it you hear “a”,
and the other is the back one, after it you hear “o”.

The difference between them is colossal.
Kalb and Kalb are almost imperceptible to the Russian ear, but to the Arab they mean “heart” or “dog”. Compliment - or insult. They always call one famous Israeli politician “Kalb-va-ibn-al-kyalb” (The Dog and the Son of the Dog).
And if you mess it up... it won’t turn out pretty...

The letter, which simply means the short sound "o" - they convey it through the special letter "ain", means a guttural "semi-wheezing" and which in writing looks similar to the "non-Russian" letter "Ъ", as in the word "B-Ъ- Bulgaria"

with the letter "mime" - a disclaimer: the circle is drawn so that the logic of the appearance of the letter is clear.
However, Arabs always draw "circles" in letters in a clockwise direction.

The third principle is schematism.
Many Russian letters are obtained by inscribing the key elements of Arabic letters into a square shape.
"ba", "ta", "tha", "p", "z",
dal, thal, tires,
"v", "f".
"mim", "nun", "lam", kaf"
Show on the board how Cyrillic letters are derived from ligature.

More than 90% of the alphabet has obvious parallels with the Cyrillic alphabet.
There are a couple more letters where the connections are not so obvious, and there are also letters where the connections are repeated.

It would be worth pointing out the obvious:
Cyril and Methodius stole ideas - not from the Greeks (or not only from the Greeks).
But for some reason it was forbidden to see Semitic roots in the Russian Empire.
That is, one could see the roots - from a language 3 thousand years ago.
But relatively “young” Arabs do not have “Arab” roots.

Fifth rule: There are strokes of Persian and Urdu that are not Arabic, but are part of this culture.
How to find in these languages ​​- an analogue for the letters "ch", "p", "zh", "ng".
show how the Russian letter "ch" is derived from the Persian one.

Sixth rule.
To learn a language you need practice.
beautiful handwriting is in itself a reason to be proud.
After 10 conscious writings, a person automatically remembers everything.
Paper, pencil, sharpener - and as in childhood - through copybooks.

Seventh rule:
What frightens us in Arabic studies is the multiplicity of spellings for the same letter. initial, final, middle, separate. But these are just the principles of adding a letter.

As in the Georgian joke:
Vilka - bottle - written without a soft sign,
salt beans - with soft
It’s impossible to understand - you have to believe in it...

Here it is worth telling an anecdote that all Russians who have lived in Arab countries for a long time know about.
When “another Arab” decides to learn Russian, he spends several days learning the Russian alphabet, in the process of learning which he annoys everyone around him. Who can hardly tolerate his senseless tediousness. we know that the Russian language must be taught differently. And those who change the way they study achieve success in it. But - Arabic really needs to be learned, starting with letters - and going from the roots of words - to more complex meanings.

And to the oral language - it is advisable to go through the written one.
sometimes you think that those who developed methods for teaching children English and French went through the “torture of Semitic languages.” Because you can see the “ears” of other methods that are poorly suited for European languages.

Eighth rule:

Three-letter roots - and uniform rules of word formation in the language. Using the example of KTB (?)
Articles (as in Latin and Spanish)
kataba - he wrote.
yaktub - he writes
maktub - office,
kAAtib - writer.

How to find “Roman roots” in the words Murom, Murmansk, Army, Perm, Kostroma - according to what rules.
How these rules can be used in life.

Tell us about Morocco and the Maghreb dialect...