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Brace yourselves, Arabic is coming.
We're out of Beta!
After 459 days in phase 2, today on the 11th of August 2015, the English course for Arabic speakers graduates from Beta. The report rates witnessed a sudden decrement upon the release of the course on smart-phones. That decrement was stabilized and further sustained by the actual stability of the course.
Reports curve for the past two weeks
What does that mean?
A course graduating from beta is always a cause for celebration, but in the case of our course, it is also a huge step towards the long-awaited Arabic for English speakers course.
You will see Arabic hatching anytime soon.
Which variant?
The English for Arabic speakers uses the Modern Standard Arabic MSA, and we are willing to stick with it for the reverse one as well.
Why MSA?
We chose to use MSA because it is the most understood, well-documented and widely-taught variant of Arabic. It is the official language in the countries across the Middle East and North Africa.
It is also the variant speakers of different distant dialects use to understand each other.
bonus skills for the dialects are in our plan - We are already planning for the bonus skills, that's how excited we are.
What should I do?
Your suggestions and ideas are most welcome. If you are qualified for the mission, feel free to apply for it.
TeamArabic.
221 Comments
Woohoo with Russian almost ready this will give me something new to look forward to :)
Will someone please correct me if I am wrong: MSA IS the official language of a lot of Middle Eastern countries, but as far as I know, it is not the language that is used on the streets. This corresponds to the dialects, which one must learn separately to be able to speak to locals in every country. However, MSA is used for formal interviews (as a formal type of language) and in written Arabic. Thus MSA is more useful for business and political interests. Anyone want to add or correct something?
This is more true for politicians than for businessmen, and more likely to happen in very formal occasions than in simple TV interviews. And even in occasions when a person is supposed to speak in MSA, there is a tendency to slip a few dialect terms and expressions while speaking, unless the occasion is super formal or the speech has already been prepared beforehand. You can listen to plenty of MSA when listening to the news, however, not all broadcasters use absolute 'pure' MSA even there. It is hard to use just MSA to describe a constantly evolving world. The good news however, is that once you know MSA, picking up the more popular dialects is just a matter of being exposed to them. It's not that hard. We as natives Arabic speakers pick up other dialects from satellite TV as well, so there is no reason for you not to do the same!
Hey Richard,
Here ya go...
LEVANTINE ARABIC
http://www.thearabicstudent.com/2009/09/introduction-to-levantine-arabic.html
http://www.thearabicstudent.com/2011/11/list-of-best-levantine-dialect-lessons.html
https://www.mangolanguages.com/available-languages/learn-levantine-arabic/
http://www.memrise.com/courses/english/levantine-arabic/
(see the 2nd section here): https://www.livelingua.com/fsi-arabic-course.php
"YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY" (lol):
https://www.youtube.com/user/LearnArabicwithMaha
https://www.busuu.com/learn-arabic-online
http://nmelrc.org/syrian-colloquial-arabic-course
PEACE CORPS
https://www.livelingua.com/peace-corps-tunisian-arabic-course.php
https://www.livelingua.com/peace-corps-moroccan-arabic-course.php
https://www.livelingua.com/peace-corps-hassaniya-arabic-course.php
https://www.livelingua.com/peace-corps-jordanian-arabic-course.php
https://www.livelingua.com/peace-corps-chadian-arabic-course.php
DLI -- DEFENSE LANGUAGE INSTITUTE
https://www.livelingua.com/dli-arabic-syrian-course.php
https://www.livelingua.com/dli-arabic-course.php
https://www.livelingua.com/dli-arabic-egyptian-course.php
https://www.livelingua.com/dli-arabic-iraqi-course.php
LINK TO MORE AWESOME LINKS
I think both of you would be very helpful to your respective language courses if you really grew up bilingual. You can probably offer an excellent perspective on the differences between each language, that would be very helpful to new learners, even if you might doubt your mastery of the language compared to others. I think that is an under appreciated vantage point.
2257
A question for those who know more about Arabic: is it possible to make educated guesses about the pronunciation of a word written in the standard manner, without the vowel marks? Or do you have to always know the pronunciation beforehand in order to pronounce the vowels correctly?
As a native Arabic speaker, yes, I can guess the pronunciation of a word without the accent marks. But sometimes, a word can be read in more than one way.
Like this word: كتب. Someone might read this as Kataba, and someone else might read it as kotob. The first one means "he wrote" and the second means "books". There's no way to know for sure which one it is.
So, to answer your question, yes, anyone can guess the pronunciation of a word, but it might not always be correct.
325
I hope that work begins on an Arabic for English speakers course soon! I am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to learn this language using DuoLingo! Any updates on status of the project?
710
Congratulations! Fantastic! But like others, I am looking forward to MSA for English speakers. When can we get excited about the release of that course?
No one really knows when, but to help you with the wait, here's an app I found that uses pretty much the same method as Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/19063269
199
I would also like to know! What is the progress of the Arabic course for English speakers? I need to keep my Arabic up to scratch after uni and am absolutely dying for duolingo Arabic!
Arabic calligraphy can be tricky even for Arabs. Here's the quote in plain text:
الحب ربيع القلوب
Love is the spring of the hearts
Al-Hubu Rabee' Al-Quloob
Check out this new TED talk for Arabic calligraphy graffiti :)
Start at the right, and follow through. The verticality is just artistic. If two letters connect together, and then another one lands above them but between them, that letter comes after them (like in the last word). This is really just cramming letters in in a beautiful arrangement, so don't be too upset if it's hard, it's hard for arabic speakers too. It's more just art.
325
Any news on the possibility of an Arabic for English speakers happening? I haven't heard anything in awhile so I thought I'd ask. Keep up the good work guys!
401
¡Congratulations! and thank you, I wish to begin Arabic from English soon. I tried English from Arabic one day, but it was impossible to learn Arabic that way.
I feel that Modern Standard Arabic will be sufficient for now. But as Duolingo gets more efficient in other writing systems it would be good to have an Egyptian Arabic course. People all over the Arab-speaking world understand Egyptian Arabic because Egyptian movies are very popular in most of those countries. So it would be a good alternative for for students of Arabic.
277
There is still no sign of Arabic on the beta courses you can sign up for. How can fictional languges such as High Valyrian and Klingon be available before Arabic? Any idea when we can start learning ??
1021
My thoughts exactly ! I find quite ridiculous allowing ressources to fictional languages in spite of real ones. And it's been a year since we are waiting for arabic :/
You say Arabic is coming - 2 years ago - but is it? 2 years later there's no sign of it even entering incubator phase.
It seems there are plenty of qualified people willing to contribute so if fake languages like klingon and esperanto are getting higher priority than Arabic... Well that's extremely, extremely frustrating.
344
Hi! If you have a program for Arabic speakers willing to learn English, why not the other way around? I am sure there are hundreds of thousands of people willing to learn Arabic. I would be very thankful to you guys if you introduce Modern Standard Arabic courses for English speakers.
Thanks in advance!
2151
I'm almost tempted to see if I could manage the reverse course as I don't think Arabic for English speakers is coming any time soon. Might be an interesting project - the alphabet is phonetic so it isn't as impossible a task as it seems although the Duo interface in Arabic font is a bit overwhelming!
325
I noticed that work has begun on the Chinese course for Duolingo so I hope that means that an Arabic course is not too far behind. Does anybody have any information on this?
2032
How about the Burj Khalifa? It's not very 'historic', but neither is the Eiffel Tower, for that matter.
2032
That thought crossed my mind too, but the Burj Khalifa has a unique and unmistakable silhouette, whereas palm trees are found throughout the world.
I know, but religious landmarks are used for other languages as well, not to mention a Mayan temple for Spanish.
Edit: approximately 47-77% of Russians and 78% of Danes are Christians. Are Christian buildings fair representation? In comparison, 90% of Arabs are Muslims. (And yes, Arabic =not necessarily= Arab)
Well... they could also go with the Pyramids of Egypt. Then we'll have two sets of pyramids on the site that have nothing to do with the language they're representing. Symmetry!
Monument notwithstanding, though, I'm definitely looking forward to this course and glad to hear it'll be in the works soon.
Based on their language, the Ancient Egyptians weren't Semitic, but they were Afro-Asiatic. They were still related to the Semitic peoples, just more distantly.
I would love an Ancient Egyptian course, but they would probably have to invent hieroglyph-input software specially for it specifically. It could be a while.
2257
Pyramids were built by semitic people, just not Arabs. It would be more appropriate to keep them as a landmark for the Ancient Egyptian course
Good question!
Did you see https://www.duolingo.com/comment/8619542 ?
There, Raulxancez shows the art he made for courses he'd like to see Duolingo add, using the existing art for courses like Danish for Spanish Speakers and his own art for courses like Nahuatl for Spanish speakers.
He also uses the Chichen Itza pyramid for Maya for Spanish speakers and uses the Angel of Independence ( http://simerida.com/courses/angeldelaindependencia.php ) for the courses teaching Spanish. :)
2032
And the Wailing Wall is used for Hebrew. Slightly religious overtones, there(!); but no-one is complaining that it is a language and not a religion. Especially as Hebrew was resurrected as a living language from almost entirely religious source texts. Methinks there is some eggshell-treading going on with regard to Arabic.
Who's treading on eggshells? I just wanted to provoke some responses so I could learn something new. I already thought of Mecca before I even posted, but is that the single greatest monument in the entire Arab world? I mean I am not religious in any way, so for me,it is essentially.... A cube... Sorry if that sounds irreverent. But well...
While I definitely agree that Arabic is a language, not a religion, could you not still have something Islamic as the picture as the region where Arabic is most widely spoken has been heavily influenced by Islam? Alternatively maybe some native flora/fauna such as the Socotra dragon tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socotra#/media/File:Socotra_dragon_tree.JPG ?
Esperanto and Norwegian didn't use monuments.
IMO the Bust of Zamenhof in Białystok and Sverd i fjell are monuments:
a statue, building, or other structure erected to commemorate a notable person or event.
2257
The Arab world has tons of landmarks. It will be hard to pick one. My vote goes to Petra. But whatever the choice, I just hope the Pyramids will be reserved for an eventual Ancient Egyptian course.
I suggest Arabic calligraphy (see my picture), rather than a particular landmark! This has always been the classical choice for language courses and programs. Landmarks would be more relevant to colloquial dialects. If you use the pyramids for MSA, then what do you use for the Egyptian dialect??? They are in fact using the pyramids now (Sept 2018) and this to me implied that they're planning to offer the Egyptian dialect rather than MSA.
Have you seen http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/ ? It seems useful for all sorts of "which monument should Duolingo use for language X?" discussions. :)
Also, remember https://www.duolingo.com/comment/7991320 ? :)
Arabic for English speakers in the incubator.. sign up
I really do hope we will get speaking exercises (many of the newer courses don't seem to have speaking ex)
475
Arabic For English Speakers has just been added in the incubator. It will teach MSA and Egyptian dialect.
Like, I understand that this is done on a volunteering basis so there might be some delays but when we have Klingon, High Valarian or Navajo but not Arabic it is just ridiculous. I do not mean to bash the other languages but it's just that more speakers = more contributors = faster finishing of the hatching. At least logically it is supposed to be that way. The site said August 2018 for the estimated time of release. Now it says 1st of May 2019. Hope it works this time.
I would like the course to teach both MSA and a dialect/some dialects/all dialects but in this way: first, a skill for teaching MSA and next to that skill, a skill for learning a dialect. Imagine that you want to teach us greetings, you can make a skill called Greetings in MSA and next to that skill, a skill called Greetings in (name of the dialect). I would like Egyptian Arabic. Thanks
With over 200,000 people who have asked to be notified when the Arabic course is released, it would be nice to have an update. I am very keen to learn Arabic and so far I am left in the dark as regards the progress being made by the duolingo team in getting this language off the ground. Is the date of 1 May 2019 still achievable? I am asking as otherwise I need to consider other options. I am sure that none of these are as good as what duolingo is potentially capable of. Any news from anyone in the know would be more than welcome. I appreciate that bringing this project to fruition is no easy feat.