8 replies to this topic

[kiptanui]

I want to learn Arabic to study Islam. What is the best way to go about doing this? Do I need a teacher or can I learn online or from books? What sort of teachers are good?

[Çåá ÇáÈíÊ]

Honestly, I've self taught myself Arabic (apart from the writing, I took classes for that) , so it would be *better* to have a teacher or attend a class, but it's not impossible to do on your own trust me. All it takes is passion, dedication, diligence and patience. There are plenty of resources on the Internet as well as books.

1. Buy "gateway to Arabic" by Dr. Imran hamza alawiye. Search it on google, it's an awesome set of books, builds the foundation very well and fun read, too. Must Buy.

2. Most Vocabulary on this site:  http://arabic.desert....net/vocab.html

[Mumin]

Don't worry about the dialects at all unless you are planning to stay in an Arab country. Learn MSA (Fus'ha) and I would recommend the free resources from this website: http://www.al3arabiya.info/

[Shia_Debater]

This website may be useful for you : Learn Arabic

[kiptanui]

Shukran I will look into all those.

How good are the Madinah Arabic books? Someone recommended them.

Edited by kiptanui, 29 July 2011 - 04:14 PM.

[sixpack434]

I highly recommend arabicpod.net, they have over 400 mp3 podcasts to download from, videos, apps and other cool stuff. All their beginner podcasts are free. I have been learning Arabic for over a year using arabicpod and have made great progress. I have tried other methods but have found podcasts to be the most effective since they’re fun to listen to and convenient as they can be downloaded to any MP3 player.

[ImamAliLover]

kiptanui, on 29 July 2011 - 11:18 AM, said:

I want to learn Arabic to study Islam. What is the best way to go about doing this? Do I need a teacher or can I learn online or from books? What sort of teachers are good?

i made a post here that may help:
http://www.shiachat....tanding-arabic/

and ill add a few things here as well:
- If you can get a teacher to help you, then definitely get a teacher.  The best teachers imo are the ones that try to immerse you into Arabic asap and push you to use Arabic as much as possible, because this will help you learn faster.  Also make sure that the teacher teaches you a good balance between vocab and grammar (with a slight emphasis on vocab).  This is a good example of a good teacher:

Notice how he speaks to the students in Fusha and gets them to speak as well.  Also notice how patient he is

Also, don't bother getting some guy's aunt who is going to teach you a local dialect because that's not going to help you really much at all

When you get beyond the basics of the language, then i recommend the following:
- Watch as much Arabic tv as you can where they speak in Fusha (like the news).  This will help you a lot with cementing the words you learned and helps get your ears accustomed to the language
- Buy a good dictionary (like the HANS WEHR) and read through books  and look up words you don't know to furthur increase your vocab.  i recommend doing this to texts that you read frequently like duas, the Quran, your favorite Arabic book, hadiths etc

Also, the books that i've recommended in the other thread are free, but if you have money to spend, honestly i would also recommend using these books in additions to the free ones that i mentioned:
http://www.amazon.co...12038587&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.co...12038612&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.co...12038625&sr=1-1

i think you'll find that there's no one book that is going to teach you the language completely.  Maybe one book focuses more on grammar whereas another book focuses more on vocab.  Or maybe one book explains a particular grammatical point better than another book, etc etc
So feel free to read through different books for teaching Arabic since that'll make you more solid in the language overall

w/s

kiptanui, on 29 July 2011 - 04:14 PM, said:

Shukran I will look into all those.

How good are the Madinah Arabic books? Someone recommended them.

Madinah Books is one of the most popular books for learning Arabic in the world.  i'm currently on Book 3 and i teach Book 1 to kids and i would highly recommend it because it's a great series, but keep in mind that it isn't sufficient for learning Arabic.  Meaning if you finish all 3 books, don't expect to be able to read and understand everything in the Quran.  This mostly because it's vocabulary and dialouge is basically limited to classroom settings.  Esp. Saudi classroom settings.  However it will give you a pretty solid foundation on the language, but don't solely rely on these books because in itself, they're not sufficient.  Even in the University of Madinah, they teach other books that supplement the shortcomings of these books.

[shialady]

kiptanui, on 29 July 2011 - 11:18 AM, said:

I want to learn Arabic to study Islam. What is the best way to go about doing this? Do I need a teacher or can I learn online or from books? What sort of teachers are good?

brother can u telll us ur conversion story

[DoubleAgent4]

http://www.learnarabicdirect.com/