Language Learner's Journal: Deepening My Studies

[This is a continuation of Taylor's blog series where she details some of the week-in-week-out lessons that she learns through her Arabic studies and coaching work together with me. For other posts in the series, click here.]

An encouraging friend said to me recently that learning a language is like peeling back the layers of an onion. I’ve been studying at Qasid for a month now, and her comparison helped me take stock of what’s happened since then – on a given day, often I can’t call up a specific new fact to tell you that I learned and mastered that day, but indeed I am learning, a lot. This week I gave a twenty-minute presentation to my class that I doubtlessly would have been incapable of doing before I started this program.

Speaking has been my biggest hurdle, and I’ve put a tip of Alex’s into practice over the past two weeks — to find five minutes a day to speak without stopping. I’d like to do even more than that, and Alex also suggested prompting myself with a picture and talking about it for an additional five minutes. But for the time being, the former is all I’m capable of fitting in between class, work, and homework. I’ve been meeting with one of my fabulous Qasid teachers and try to recap the day’s news for her, since I write a global newsletter each day and those events are fresh and relevant to me. We’ve gone over the Gambian electoral standoff, Donald Trump and the #MuslimBan, and the Chilean wildfires in recent days.

In general, I’ve also been taking up anyone on the opportunity to speak — the same teacher asked if I’d be a practice student for her to become an oral proficiency certifier, which meant we had a 45-minute one-on-one conversation, while another instructor offered to stay with students after our evening ammiya course to have a purely conversational section. To strengthen my speaking muscles, in the presentation I mentioned above, I went with Alex’s “planned spontaneity” approach rather that write it word-for-word ahead of time. I chose a topic that is easy for me — the history of Arab migration to Latin America — and wrote down a list of words I wanted to use during it, like تراث (heritage) and بارز (prominent), and glanced over my list between my powerpoint slides of pictures.

The next step I’d like to put into practice is getting more comfortable using the verbs I know and conjugating them correctly without having to pause and think them out. I see that I have my go-to words that I use the vast majority of the time that I speak, and I’d like to resist getting into a rut.

As per the advice of a teacher, I’ve also been incorporating an extra nice exercise into class — I keep a running list of the vocabulary I come across in class that are new to me (on my list now: مطابق, identical, الفرد, individual, مرادف, synonym) and, when our teacher prompts us to write a few sentences using whatever new grammatical concept we’re going over, I glance through my list and try to use a word or two. It helps me resist the tendency to rely on my go-to words. It’s nice because I have an easy time learning obvious picture vocabulary — like animals, food, etc — whereas I need to pay better attention to words that are a little more abstract.

Also, very nicely, since I have a midterm coming up that will cover five chapters worth of vocabulary, I’m feeling appreciative that Anki’s spaced repetition methods means that material is still in the cards I see each day. As per Alex’s encouragement, I’m pausing to come up with mnemonic devices for words that don’t stick easily for me. This is something I did routinely when I studied at a more leisurely pace and that I’ve left behind as I feel a little breathless.

Alex has also been helping me think about my next steps after Qasid and finding the balance that’s right for me between speaking/dialect and reading/writing/fusha. I’ll share more about that once I finalize my next plans.

I’m still as pooped as I was when I wrote my first entry, but whenever I catch myself veering into a self-indulgent pity-me territory, I do stop to remind myself: I may be having little in the way of leisure time these days, but, indeed, I did live in Rio de Janeiro for six years. And when I was in Rio, I dreamed of the day I'd be able to throw myself into my studies.

Actual Fluency

I was interviewed by Kris Broholm on the Actual Fluency podcast last week. This was a real pleasure to do, since I've been listening to that podcast more or less since it first started.

You can listen to the interview/episode here. Our conversation was fairly wide-ranging, covering topics like whether to start Arabic by learning the spoken or written form first, how to learn languages when there isn't much in the way of materials available, and what kinds of meta-skills I've found useful in my own language learning journey as well as that of the students I coach.

How to learn a page of verbs

Someone sent me a list of verbs that they were hoping to memorise. They wanted some tips and suggestions for different ways to approach the task. You can see part of the image above. Verb, translation and a sample sentence where the word is used in context.

Arabic verbs are unique in that they often share a similar / familiar rhythmic pattern (da-da-da), so it can sometimes feel like they're all the same.

I sent him the following suggestions and thought it might be useful for others so I'm reposting it here. For verbs, it helps to attack from multiple angles simultaneously.

• Make sure you understand the meanings
• Make sure you know how they sound. (Use Forvo or check with a native-speaker if there's any confusion)
• Go through and say them out loud. Take time with each word, saying it out loud a number of times. Get a sense of the physicality of the word
• (Ideally, add them in Anki, though that's more for long-term preservation rather than short-term passing a test etc)
• Look up each word on Reverso Context. The online dictionary will give you a translation and then a bunch of different examples of other sentences using that word or verb. Look to see how it's used. Study the examples and try to identify what is unique about the word - its meaning may not be exactly translatable into English/French.
• Look up each word on Tatoeba. Repeat the same steps as you did for Reverso Context in the previous suggestion.
• Go to Google News and type in the word in Arabic. Take a look at the examples that come up. Copy them out onto a piece of paper if you feel like the language is interesting.
• Try using them in a sentence out loud. First repeat the sample sentence given in the example. Make sure you understand how the word is used in the context of that example. Then make a sentence of your own that uses the word. Say it out loud. Make another sentence.
• Write two sentences for each of the words. Try not to go through the list in order. Either do every other word, or pick at random. Point is, don't get used to going through the list in order, since that'll only make you good at remembering the list rather than the words on their own. (BONUS: Post these sentences to Lang-8, get corrections and make Cloze Deletion cards on Anki so that you're not just learning from single word cards, but you're learning words in context.
• Do Back Translation with the sentences you've just had corrected on Lang-8. First translate them into English on a new sheet of paper / file on your computer. Then close the original Arabic sentences and see if you can translate the sentences back into Arabic from the new English sentences. This will really test your command of the vocabulary and phrasal structures you just learned. You can do this in writing or just orally.
• If you have problems with spelling, use Iverson's lists: Take a blank piece of paper - A4 is good (or whatever the US equivalent is) - and write a list of the words you have to learn today on the left side of the page. Try not to take up too much space. Maybe it's 20 words. Write them down on the left side of the page. Then take a ruler or draw a line alongside that list and to the right of the line, (perhaps in a different colour pen), write the translation of that word. Do that for all the words. If you don't know the word, then the memorisation image/association hasn't stuck, so you can look up the correct answer and make sure that your association sticks this time. Once you've completed this first test, take another piece of paper (or, better still, something thicker like a book so you can't cheat) and cover up the first column. Now you only have your answers to look at, and you should draw another line and then write the translations. (i.e. translating things back into the original language). Do all the translations for the list, then check whether you got them right. Then you should repeat this until the entire piece of paper (both sides) are covered with translations back and forth. If you write small-ish, you should be able to get a good 6 or 7 rounds of translations/testing in (if not more). Perhaps don't do all of these sessions at once. Do one side of the page in one go, and then leave other sessions for later in the day (for reasons I'll explain now). Once you've taken the time to make the sound association, write down the list of words that you're learning that day on the page as described in my blogpost. Do one round of translating them. Then during the day, every so often, do another round, translating the words back and forth etc.

There are other ways you can practice words, but this is probably enough to get started with. You don't have to do all of these steps, though if you get through them all I pretty much guarantee you'll be better off than doing none of them!

Language Learner's Journal: Adjustments at the Deep End

[This is a continuation of Taylor's blog series where she details some of the week-in-week-out lessons that she learns through her Arabic studies and coaching work together with me. For other posts in the series, click here.]

I'd be lying if I said this wasn't a hard week for me. Our homework load is heavy at Qasid, and it means most days I go straight from class to work to homework. On a big picture level, I'm trying to keep my head above water by maintaining perspective that studying is a privilege and it's not every adult who has the flexibility (thanks to the nature of freelance journalism and independent contracting) to go back to school.

On a more detail-oriented level, a few strategies are making me feel more orderly about my studies. One of my recurring issues that that I often feel so deep into tedious grammar that getting homework done is less about comprehending the subject and more like squirming like sightless creepy-crawly that by trial and error finally happens upon ground level. That doesn't do me much good, so when I see that feeling coming on, I try to stop and find a resource, like my grammar book to remember some basics, like what's the actual meaning of the pronouns I'm using or what again are the meanings associated with each verb wazin. If I'm going to take an hour to write out verb charts, I can take an extra ten minutes to make sure I understand, even if it's a fleeting understanding, each line I'm writing.

Some of Alex's tips have helped me make more of the time I have in the classroom and independent study:

• Sped up my anki card-making by using the cloze template and by challenging myself to have fewer clues (i.e., not searching for pictures or a perfect simple sentence with a new word, but mostly using the Al Kitaab and Qasid's Ammiya course's sample sentences and audio). This has meant a lot -- it means I maintain a lot of my Al Kitaab and Ammiya vocabulary from my supplementary course in my day-to-day reviews. Also, I notice many of my classmates using Quizlet, and it is indeed tempting when we are short on time. Al-Kitaab vocabularly has already been uploaded many times over so I could download a premade deck, but usually it's just in translation (i.e., an Arabic-to-English flashcard with a single word on each side). Making my own Anki cards certainly takes time, but I get a lot of reading and listening done in the process.
• (A note on Al Kitaab: A high point for me is continually realizing that the textbook is well designed and routinely feeding back to me vocabulary I've already seen. I study each chapter's new vocabulary by looking through their sample sentences in the answer key / read aloud in the audio CD; even if I think I don't understand a sentence at first glance, about three-fourths of the time I am able to figure it out if I read it again or listen to their slow, deliberate pronunciations. Gabriel Wyner talks about the power of the "ah-ha!" moment in language learning, or, straining a bit without any outside help from a translator and finally being able to call up the meaning to a word to which you've been exposed. It may sound simple, but it means in practice: Don't run to a dictionary each time I don't understand a sentence. And it's been key to how I've been able to keep recognising a good bit of our new vocabulary which would otherwise be like pouring sand into a sieve, given the volume of work we do.)
• When I have trouble speaking in class, "plan spontaneity." My teacher starts each class by asking each individual student how their days have gone and what they have done; I'm using that as an opportunity to come up with any sentence slightly more interesting than, "I did homework" and try to put a new verb into practice. Also, when time permits, I glance ahead to the exercises on our syllabus for the next day so I can have an idea of what they are about as soon as we open the page to them.
• Setting a stopwatch to see how long my homework is taking me and tracking my time spend on various language learning activities each day (reading, writing, watching TV/videos...). This doesn't necessarily speed me up, but it does, if I'm pooped out by the end of the day, give me a sense of how I spent my time after class and work. As Alex predicted, I'm spending the vast majority of my time on reading and writing exercises, which is fine at this stage, though I want to change that in the future.
• I paid extra attention to the ten verb forms and the patterns used to derive other parts of speech (like the masdr, the ism fael, and the ism mafaul). My initial instinct had been that it was nice to appreciate these patterns but that it would certainly be a mental overhaul to try to systematically memorize them. Alex called the wazin the base of the Arabic language, and even if I don't have them memorized, I am seeing that recognizing some common patterns and being able to derive meaning from them is useful (like, "this is the masdr, it looks similar to a conjugated verb but it's a 'verbal noun' and is often coming where I expect a conjugated verb.")
• Plan language exchanges with topics and questions beforehand. I meet with a friend from my weekly running group for English-Ammiya exchanges, and we chat throughout the week on Facebook about what we'd like to talk about. It means everything to have a compass to guide us through what the other may be saying.

[If you're interested in coaching for your own language study, click here to find out more information.]

Language Learner's Journal: Introducing Taylor

[This is a guest blog, written by freelance journalist and (Arabic) language student, Taylor Barnes. I'm working with Taylor to get her up and running as quickly and effectively as possible, and I suggested she might want to write about her learning progress along the way. She'll be posting here every week or two.]

Rio de Janeiro is an unusual place for an American journalist to begin studying Arabic, but at least it made my beginning steps in this challenging language deeply associated with laughter and leisure. Brazilians of all ages have a habit I admire of seemingly always being in a continuing education cursinho, be it studying German twice a week or enrolling in online courses from the Justice Ministry about drug policy. (I did this once along with a colleague in the Brazilian media, though I can't say I finished it.)

I lived and worked in Brazil for six years. There, I watched in myself what it meant to become fluent in a new language as an adult – I could take phone calls from strangers, have a store sign come into my visual field and not be able to not read it, hear kids prattling and usually make sense of it. When I began to contemplate a move to a new region, I was delighted to find a very affordable new Arabic course offered at Rio's Lebanese Consulate. My Brazilian teacher there was enthusiastic about developing a communicative approach to teaching the language, so we studied songs, watched kids' TV programs, and wrote plays about animals and princesses while we glossed over things like case endings and conjugations for pronouns like antumaa and huna. We called ourselves the habibinhos, a word so adorable in Portuguese that it makes us sound like we're in diapers. After an enormously challenging day of doing addition and subtraction with Arabic numerals, one habibinho said that we may never learn this language, but at least we were delaying our onset of Alzheimer's.

When the stars aligned for me to move and be able to bump up my Arabic studies, I chose the Qasid Institute here in Amman for its intensity, immersion classes, and communicative approach to teaching. It's kicking my butt. Two weeks in, my head is not yet above water.

We have class for three hours a day and at least as many hours of homework, and I work a part-time job to pay for my studies. On top of that, I'm starting an Ammiya supplement at Qasid twice a week. While my classmates often have university studies of Arabic under their belt and are comfortable speaking about the Syrian war or identifying whether a verb in mansub or marfua, I'm struggling to speak about anything beyond my daily life (family, friends, food and animals!).

I thought a lot about my motivations before I left my comfortable and lovely life in Rio to chase a goal that may lead me down a rabbit hole. I've spoken with many friends and colleagues who studied Arabic at some point, and I hear repeated stories of dissatisfaction. It's important for me to define clear goals and make meaningful progress toward what fluency means for me – I've decided that means communicating with a variety of people in a new language and reading the kind of texts we see in daily life, like a newspaper article or a Facebook post.

This time in Amman is unlike any other in which I've been a student: I chose to leave better pay, professional reputation, and satisfying work in order to work toward a new goal. It makes the move more compelling since I feel a strong sense of ownership, but it also raises the stakes. If I took my time, money, and left my friends and family, this is no longer just a leisurely hobby.

Rather than just study Arabic, I've dedicated significant time to studying how to learn a challenging language. In my independent study, I use many methods that will be familiar to followers of Alex's blog and podcast, like Anki spaced repetition flashcards and learning new words in context or in stories. I also use many of the tools laid out in Gabriel Wyner's Fluent Forever, like using Google image searches to try to discover the meaning of unknown words without translation and finding native speaker pronunciations through sites like Forvo. I am also a very big fan of TalkInArabic.com's videos and transcripts for Ammiya/colloquial practice.

I'll be working with Alex as a coach over my upcoming months as I study at Qasid and meet weekly with a conversation partner I've picked up here in Amman. You'll see my blogs on a weekly or biweekly basis, and I hope you see some forward movement in them. Expect upcoming posts to be shorter and more technical.

Even if I said this is no longer just a leisurely pursuit, I also don't want to lose that quality that I said I admire in Brazilians – taking small sips of a new subject just because it's interesting and novel, without having a deadline or an endgame. At our orientation at Qasid, one of our administrators said that Arabic learning is a marathon, not a sprint. I'm an athlete, and that comparison felt spot-on.

And in that spirit, I'm ending my introduction here with a selfie I took at the Rio Summer Olympics with my favourite athlete, American marathoner Meb Keflezighi. It wasn't an easy selfie to get: I was exhausted from work during the games (thank to Ryan Lochte), but gathered enough awakedness to get up early on the final Sunday of the event to watch the men's marathon. I used my press pass to sneak into the cool-down area after the finish line in Rio's samba stadium and approached the legend himself to ask for the picture. It was worth it. 

Master Arabic: Behind the Cover

I've been pleasantly surprised by the interest and the number of people who've already pre-ordered copies of my new book, Master Arabic. I wrote a guest blogpost at the end of last week for Lingualism, a wonderful small publisher that puts out quality materials relating to dialect. If you're studying Egyptian Arabic in particular, they have lots of materials you'll want to check out.

Today, I wanted to say something about the image I chose for the cover of the book. My mother, Liz Strick, is a painter and this is one of her recent works entitled Energy. She wrote the following about the painting:

"In 2014 I suffered a severe stroke with partial and permanent paralysis as a result. For an artist this is a tremendous, almost insurmountable, setback! Art took up an essential part of my life up until I suffered the stroke. Art always had a central place in my heart and in my head. After years of continued physiotherapy treatments and rehabilitation, it is hard to explain what happened when I was eventually prompted by my physiotherapist to start using my left paralysed hand for what I had alway loved doing best all my life: art. He gave me back my life and the gift of hope! It is a gift more valuable than I could have thought. Energy started flowing through my body and I had found my own way to overcome the ‘impossible’: drawing with my lame left hand! “Energy” was born and is here to stay." [SOURCE]

I thought the image was ideal for the cover not only because the lines reminded me of the Arabic script somewhat, but also because the story of the painting - born out of difficulty and determination - should be relatable to any student of the Arabic language. Check out the rest of my mother's paintings here, and if you're in the Netherlands, consider visiting her open exhibition, running until the end of the month.

Master Arabic: What's in the Premium Edition?

Master Arabic is the book I wish I'd had when I got the end of my university programme studying Arabic. I'm really happy with how it's turned out, especially the resource list. I discovered all sorts of new books and online materials that I'll be using in my own studies going forward.

I've updated the page for Master Arabic to more accurately reflect the differences between the basic and premium edition. Here's what you get when you order the premium edition.

• 13 Expert Interviews - You'll receive a link to download MP3 files for you to listen at your own convenience. I chose people who have been through the challenges associated with intermediate learning plateaus, and they each offer unique tips to break through to more advanced levels.
• Discount Codes - Exclusive discount codes from some useful language services and publishers. Language learning can be expensive; these codes offer some respite.
• Online Resource List - I've scoured the web and physical bookstores to pick out the best resources available for the intermediate language learner. This is a 'living document', continually updated as I come across new materials. The resources are organised into topics / areas, and there are dialect-specific sections as well.
• Cheat Sheet - Most Common 1000 Words - learning this list will make more of the things you read and listen to comprehensible.
• Cheat Sheet - Tim Ferriss' Deconstruction Dozen - Twelve sentences that reveal the core grammatical structures and principles at work in the Arabic language.
• Cheat Sheet - Tool Overview - An overview of some of the main tools and tricks you can use to work on specific skills or areas of your study.
• Cheat Sheet - Goal-Setting Worksheet - a one-page chart to help you think about the goals you set. (Corresponds to a section in the book on goal-setting.)
• Cheat Sheet - Arabizi - a one-page quick reference chart for the symbols and letters used to type unique Arabic letters using English script. Essential for txting and chatting with friends!
• Access to the exclusive Incremental Elephant forum to discuss language learning and your Arabic progress
• Sample Study Plans - I've included suggested activities you can use to customise your own plan. Includes samples for those who only have 30 minutes each day as well as someone working on an intensive study programme (either in-country or at a university)
• Spread the Learning! - Buy the premium edition and I'll send a PDF copy of the book to a friend, free of charge!
• Lifetime updates - Receive lifetime updates to the book's text. I continue to work on the text and when a new release is available, premium customers can download the update for free.

You can view a list of the thirteen people I interviewed here.

There are also six discount codes offered with the premium package:

• Bliu Bliu - Get 3 months Premium for free when you enroll in the Arabic Challenge.
• iTalki - Get $10 of language classes for free with your first purchase and the exclusive premium code. (PRE-ORDER ONLY)
• Glossika - 25% off for purchases in their online store
• Foreigncy - Get a 10% discount on six-month and annual subscriptions with the exclusive premium code. (PRE-ORDER ONLY)
• Talk in Arabic - Discounted subscriptions.
• Beeminder - Get a 20% discount on all premium plans with the exclusive premium code.

(Note, two of the premium codes are only valid if you pre-order the book.)

Classical Arabic and a Sources and Methods Recap

The new Arabic podcast I started has three episodes out of the Jordanian dialect series. Today I'm adding to those with a new series exploring classical literature. I'm extremely pleased to be joined by my friend, the erudite Talha Ahsan, someone who has a strong appreciation for the subject matter and who teaches Arabic online and in person in the UK. Read some of the testimonials from his former students here.

In our first episode, we discuss Ibn al-Muqafaa' and Talha's interest in classical literature. We get into Ibn al-Muqaffa's relevance to the modern age and explain what we hope this podcast series will do.

Sources and Methods has a new podcast out today, too. This is an 'inbetweenisode' in which Matt and I discuss the past year, what we've been up to recently and some of our future plans. Let us know if you enjoyed this style of episode. We were thinking of doing more of these conversations between us where we take a deep-dive into a particular topic.