Last night, i was looking through some of my Egyptian music CD's, trying to find a certain song. So I was examining CD cases, and realized that I was recognizing certain words in song titles that I wouldn't have recognized 3 months ago!
Of course, I'm a l-o-n-g way from being able to understand song lyrics without help or follow a movie plot without subtitles, and realistically I may NEVER reach a skill level that would enable me to do that. But it does feel nice to know that even the little knowledge I've acquired so far is starting to help me already.
Of course, I'm a l-o-n-g way from being able to understand song lyrics without help or follow a movie plot without subtitles, and realistically I may NEVER reach a skill level that would enable me to do that. But it does feel nice to know that even the little knowledge I've acquired so far is starting to help me already.
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Iowa
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Re: My Arabic studies starting to pay off...
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 11:45 AMHow have you been learning Arabic? Are you taking a class, or using CDs?
I would love to try to learn it, but I really don't have time for another hobby right now.
I wish someone would offer an Arabic Language for Bellydancers class or workshop. Something that would help identify words commonly used in songs, translating the lyrics to popular songs, etc. And not just translating the lyrics themselves, but help to put them into a context so that we better understand what they refer to in the culture they were written in. -
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Re: My Arabic studies starting to pay off...
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 12:50 PMI'm using the CD's from Pimsleur for Egyptian Arabic. I don't have time for another hobby right now, either, so I do my "studies", if you can call it that, when I'm driving around town in my car - going to the grocery store, heading to my dance studio, picking up my dry cleaning, etc. I know I'd learn faster if I spent more time on it, but right now that's all I have time for. So even though my pace is slow, I figure that by the time I get to Egypt this summer (in June), I'll know a lot more than I did when I went there last year. And once I get there, I'll have time to practice it and see how well the lessons apply in real life!
I'm thinking about writing an article for the Gilded Serpent on it - what the Pimsleur CD's are like, how I used them, how useful the skills they taught me proved to be, etc. I'll wait until July or August to write it - that way, I can give the feedback on what happened when i tried using the knowledge in Egypt itself.
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