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Brain Study: Reading Arabic Isn’t Easy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| TheGBiBanana Newbie United States Joined 5095 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (classical), Arabic (Iraqi), Arabic (Written) | Message 9 of 14 03 September 2010 at 4:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I can sound out words in Arabic faster than I can sound out words that I don't know in English. Maybe I just like the script too much. I don't buy into this study at all.
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| hxa155 Triglot Newbie Saudi Arabia Joined 5018 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: Arabic (classical), Arabic (Gulf)*, EnglishC2 | Message 10 of 14 12 September 2010 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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One of the best things about the Arabic script is that you can read/pronounce or write
any word you want. I find it much better than English in this department because each letter has only one sound. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| CaucusWolf Senior Member United States Joined 5059 days ago 191 posts - 234 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese | Message 11 of 14 12 September 2010 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I wouldn't say that it's easy to guess exact pronunciation for every word you don't know. An example would be ايضا=pronounced ayyDan. Without knowing there's an N = ن it's difficult to know the precise pronunciation.(Unless the short vowels are shown like in The Quran.) Edited by CaucusWolf on 12 September 2010 at 7:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| aldous Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5029 days ago 73 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 12 of 14 14 September 2010 at 5:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I agree with hxa155 about the clarity of Arabic spelling. If you haven't studied Arabic grammar, then just knowing the letters isn't enough to know how to pronounce Arabic. But after you've learned the grammar, you're able to identify when a final alif is meant to be pronounced with an N, even if you don't know the word, because you'll know that that sometimes happens, you'll know it happens with adverbs and indefinite direct objects, and you'll know from context whether the word in question is one of those.
The only exception I can think of offhand is with the past tense of form I verbs. The middle vowel can be one of three possibilities. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5107 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 13 of 14 14 September 2010 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Niels Bohr's once said:
The Arabic writing system is more complex and more problematic than you think. Adverbs like 'Ayḍan, which are actually indeterminate accusative nouns, follow a clear pattern, however, many other words don't. Take for instance the passive voice. Even native speakers often have to read a sentence with an initial passive verb twice in order to understand it. There are also many infamous examples of highly ambiguous verbs. Take for example لم يعد which has at least 5 different valid readings (see Cetacea's web site لما / فقد / لم يعد Explained). But even regular verbs can be ambiguous, because the imperfect of forms I, II and IV looks identical without vowel signs.
The imperfect of form I verbs also has three different vowels. There are actually 6 different combinations possible: a/u kataba/yaktubu (كتب) i/a shariba/yashrabu (شرب) a/i 'arafa/ya'rifu (عرف) a/a sa'ala/yas'alu (سأل) a/i~u jalaba/yajlibu or yajlubu (جلب) u/u Hasuna/yaHsunu (حسن) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| aldous Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5029 days ago 73 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 14 of 14 14 September 2010 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You're right about the imperfect form I verb. I wasn't thinking. But in the other cases you mentioned - passive verbs, and the imperfect of forms I, II, and IV - in the Arabic I've read, the publisher always clarified. They put a shadda on the middle consonant of form II verbs, and they put a damma on the first consonant of form IV and passive verbs. But from what you say, it sounds like publishers don't always do that. Regarding the example of لم يعد, it would have five valid readings if sitting by itself, but once placed in a paragraph some of those readings (probably four of them) will cease to be valid. In English, we have a series of words that are either nouns or verbs depending on the stress (e.g. prógress, progréss). These are two different words with the same spelling, but I wouldn't call that ambiguous, because in context one can tell which meaning is intended. Every language has situations like this. It doesn't impede communication because context always plays a role in comprehension. I should clarify that I agree with CaucusWolf that you can't always guess the exact pronunciation of a word you don't know just from seeing it written. I don't know how anyone could disagree with that statement, considering Arabic doesn't write short vowels. By the way, this morning I read a word that I didn't think of last night, that actually is spelled irregularly: مائة. It's spelled mā'a but it's pronounced mī'a (or mīya in colloquial). Another example is عمرو, pronounced `Amr. The و is silent, and is just there to distinguish `Amr from `Umar, which would otherwise have the same spelling. So Arabic spelling is not perfectly regular. Edited by aldous on 14 September 2010 at 5:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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