Product Review: Arabic Genie

One of the biggest things that makes Arabic seem so daunting is its alphabet. It basically just looks like a bunch of squiggles and dots before you learn it, as you can see in this screen cap from the South Park episode Imaginationland. Learning the alphabet is an essential first step when learning Arabic. Without knowing it you can't start to learn anything else about the language. One of the most difficult aspects of the Arabic alphabet is the fact that simply adding a dot to a letter, in many cases, makes it a totally different letter. You have ب ,ي ,ن ,ت ,ث which are all the same except for the number of dots they have and whether those dots are above or below. Many people confuse these similar letters for a long time when learning Arabic. You really need a way to distinguish the Arabic letters from each other and remember what sounds they make. That is why the Arabic Genie program is so nice. It offers memory aids for each letter and dozens of exercises that cement the sound and shape of each letter in your mind. It teaches you how to spell English words with the Arabic letters, a method which connects the new Arabic letters to something that you are familiar with and have been using all your life.Once you go through the program and learn the sounds and shapes of each letter, the book introduces you to Arabic calligraphy. I find certain Arabic calligraphy very difficult to read. I remember when I was first learning Arabic I asked my teacher what the logo on the Al Jazeera channel said. My teacher laughed at me and told me that it said "Al Jazeera". It took me months to figure out where each of the letters were in the logo, which dots went with which letter, and which markings were just for decoration. I had to figure it out on my own, but Arabic Genie points out where each letter is in several calligraphies, a tactic which you will be able to apply to all Arabic calligraphy you come into contact with in the future.

Arabic Genie turned out to be a much better program than I expected. It takes things that make total sense to Arabs, but not so much sense to English speakers, and explains them in a way that is perfectly logical and simple. If I ever hit my head and forget Arabic I know where to turn to start relearning it. To buy a copy of the Arabic Genie, click here.

Language Program Review: Rocket Arabic

Most of the material I post on this blog is geared toward those who already have some knowledge of Arabic. However, I do realize that the majority of students are at a beginner level, so I'm going to start making more posts on the basics of Arabic.

For those in the beginning stages of learning who want to become advanced, I recently had the chance to try a program from Rocket Languages for learning Arabic appropriately named, Rocket Arabic. It's basically a combination of Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone, but for a lot less money. It teaches Egyptian Arabic since that is the most widespread dialect and all Arabs understand it to varying degrees. Their site has lengthy audio samples from their course, one from the beginning part of the course and one from the more advanced section. Unlike Pimsleur they include the Arabic transcripts and English translations. Anyone who has read my posts knows how much I love transcripts! They really help for those times when you just can't seem to hear what word is being said and when you would otherwise be lost. There is also a 6 day free course you can download to see if you think you'll benefit from the full version.The course comes with a computer program as well, which is comparable to Rosetta Stone in that it shows you pictures and you have to choose the correct response. Unlike simply memorizing vocab lists, this type of learning puts the meanings of the words into your mind on a deeper level. You aren't simply correlating a word in English with a word in Arabic, but you're learning like you learned your native language, by seeing what the words mean and connecting them to their meaning instead of to an English word. This improves recall and means that you'll remember the words for the long term, more so than if you had learned them by simply memorizing vocab lists.

I suggest that you go with the digital download version when purchasing Rocket Arabic because it's a full $250 cheaper. For some reason they charge $50 for shipping and handling. Some people like to have a physical copy of things though, so to each his own. The program also has a 60 day money back guarantee so if you find that it's not for you or you change your mind there's no harm, no foul.

My Rating:

Great Program for Learning Arabic

Click Here! to find out the easiest way to learn Arabic without spending hundreds of dollars.

So we all know that the job market is wide open for those with a knowledge of the Arabic language after the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq. The only problem now is learning it. Not such a small problem as Arabic is one of the hardest (if not the hardest) languages for native English speakers to learn. And Universities in the US are still very lacking when it comes to teaching Arabic even after the US’s huge demand for Arabic speakers has become common knowledge. A search of CollegeBoard.com reveals only 18 universities in the US that offer a major in Arabic and the University of Georgia is the only university in the south that does. Teaching yourself with the help of courses and the internet is the best way to learn Arabic, but when you look at the most prominent courses like Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur you’ll see that they cost hundreds of dollars. You don't have to spend that much. For a way to learn Arabic without spending a week's paycheck follow this link.