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:

Arabic Videos on LangMedia

I came across this site through a post on the How to Learn Any Language forums. I thought I had found all the good sites for learning Arabic, but this one has stayed hidden from me. It's called LangMedia and they have resources for a lot of different languages, not just Arabic. As far as Arabic goes though, not only does it have a lot of MSA dialouges with translations, but there are also quite of few roleplay videos in the Jordanian, Palestinian, and Syrian dialects (also with translations). I wish I had known about this site a year ago when I was just starting with the Arabic dialects. It would have made the road a lot easier. There's really a lot to be learned from this site.

Here's an example of the kind of videos that are on their website along with the transcription and translation.




رحت انا مع ابوي لتل ابيب و كانت هاذي اجمل مرة بطلع فيها في إجازة. بقيت هناك لأسبوعين. رحت على البحر. رحت على مطاعم. رحت على حديقة الحيوانات. و كان يعني إجازة تستحق يعني أن تتسمى إجازة لأنه كانت أول مرة بروح فيها على حديقة حيوانات. أول مرة بشوف البحر. تعرفت على أصحاب كثير
I went to Tel Aviv with my dad. This was the best vacation I ever had. I was there for two weeks. I went to the sea; I went to restaurants; I went to a zoo. It deserved to be called a vacation because it was the first time I went to a zoo and saw the sea. I made a lot of friends.

Memri TV as a learning resource

I'm sure many Arabs will say that Memri TV is biased against the Arab World as it was founded and is run by Jews and it has a tendency to show clips of extremists and those on the fringes of society spouting crazy viewpoints (this guy thinks the Earth is flat and bigger than the Sun), but I'm not going to take a political stance and say whether it is right or wrong. I simply use it as a tool to learn the language. If you haven't heard of Memri, it's a site with over 2000 translated video clips that tries to give English speakers some insight into the Arabic/Muslim mind. They aren't all Arabic clips, but the vast majority are and most of them are pretty interesting. There are clips in MSA as well as all the dialects. You'll learn things about the language and also quite a bit about politics and Arabic/Muslim culture. They don't have the transcripts in Arabic, only in English, which is really the only criticism I have, but I guess their target English speaking audience doesn't really care to see pages of uninteligable squiggles, so it makes sense. It's a goal of mine to watch and make sure I understand all the videos on the site. That's over 2000 videos, but I'm sure if a person were to watch them all it would greatly improve their Arabic. Memri also has a YouTube channel. And here's a crazy guy who thinks that Valentines day is worse than AIDS and that it makes Muhammad sad when you celebrate it. Take heed!

Resources for Intermediate Students

         In my experience the best way to continue learning a language once you have the basics down is to have a listening passage with a transcript included. If you just have a listening passage with no transcript there are bound to be some, if not a lot, of words and phrases that you don't know. With the similarity of many of the Arabic letters (to native English ears anyway) sometimes you won't be sure whether the word that you don't know is spelled with a س (seen) or a ص (saud), a د (del) or a ض (daud), making the word hard to look up in a dictionary. If you have a transcript of the passage it will save you a lot of wasted time trying different combinations of letters until you stumble upon the correct one that gives you a meaning that makes sense with the rest of the sentence. The following websites I recommend for intermediate students, but beginners who at least know what sounds the letters make may benefit as well.

• GLOSS (Global Language Online Support System)

        This site was made by the Defense Language Institute which is the place that the US government sends military members to learn languages. Luckily it is a free site open to everyone. On this site you can search for listening or reading passages based on your skill level. GLOSS has a large selection of passages that will keep you busy for months. They go from DLPT level 2 to level 3 in Arabic. Some of the languages go up to level 3+ passages, and Spanish has some level 4's. All of them have a listening portion and a transcript.

There is a lesson with each one that you can follow if you choose, but most of the time I simply listen to them 2 or 3 times without looking at the transcript and then I go back and dissect the passage while following along with the transcript and looking at the English version to make sure I'm translating the Arabic correctly. If there are any parts that I don't fully understand I'll replay those parts until I can figure out how the sentence is working (i.e. which verbs are being done by which nouns, which nouns the adjectives are modifying, etc). GLOSS is the single most beneficial site on the internet for intermediate students looking to break into the advanced level and being able to listen to the news with ease.

• Weekly Training Events

        This is a site with the same type of passages that GLOSS has which is due to the fact that it was also made by the US government. It has 57 Arabic passages also from level 2 to 3.

• SCOLA
  

        Watching TV programs in Arabic will help you get a bit of immersion in the language. SCOLA offers several Arabic programs. Most of the programs are news, but sometimes they have regular shows in between news broadcasts. There's no transcript included which makes it hard to learn from if you're a beginner in the language, but intermediate students should get some benefit from watching Arabic TV broadcasts.