My Opinion On Arabic Language Books
As you may know. I’ve been learning Arabic on my own for a week now and kinda grasp the very basic Arabic grammar. I’m using both Western books as well as traditional books. As for dictionary, I chose Indonesian one as it’s easier to access and cheaper than the English one.
The traditional books I’m using is the translation of the books named Al-Jurumiyyah and the Kailani book for the sarf. I also follow some free videos on Youtube. I found out these books are hard to follow even if the Jurumiyyah one is not that thick. I think these books and videos are more geared towards traditional way of learning language and heavy on memorisation. My brain is good on pattern recognition and analytical skill and rather bad on memorisation. I suspect this because the Arabic Language has been studied as way to understand the religious texts. The Islamic Madrasa is older than modern public school. I think this is almost the same way how Chinese back then study: heavy on memorisation.
The Indonesian videos produced by some education institutions on Youtube are mostly good. However, sadly, the lessons are made to make a good mark on exam. It has value. But to make me memorise the gerund and the imperative form of a verb even before I can make a simple present tense is too much for me.
The western book of my choice is New Arabic Grammar Of The Written Language by Haywood and Nahmad. It’s written in such a way that I need to learn the conjugation when I need it, just like any other language books. I read it everywhere. This book also have many exercise that I can do and redo several times. The thing about learning this way is that I do the exercise several times until I kinda recognise the pattern and some of their common exception.
I’m coming and back and forth between the western and traditional ones. They compliment each other. I maybe still faraway on being able to create a complete compound sentence. But at least, I am confident enough to flirt in Arabic and to analyse my friend’s name, finding the root word and guessing its meaning. So far it’s more fun than I thought.
