Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources learning arabic?

Hi...

my ds6 wants to learn arabic- he thinks the script is really cool and like that it's supposed to be hard to learn. does anyone know of good resources for teaching him? Preferably not drastically expensive? (I'm thinking this is a whim and don't expect it to last long, but don't want to put him off learning languages with a poor program, either).

thank you!

Small world! My DS7 wants to learn Arabic, too.

He took French on Saturdays in a GT enrichment class from a man from Morocco who speaks Arabic, too, and he got interested.

I haven't found anything to purchase or online that I like. Luckily, my DS4 is in pre-K with the kids of a couple of native Arabic speakers. (Trust me, that is VERY unusual in our white-bread-and-mayo midwestern community!) So I just asked one of the moms about it. It turns out she's planning to teach her own son Arabic, and she said I could add him to the "class" if I wanted to.

My best suggestion based on my experience is to find someone in the community to ask about it. If you have a university or maybe a mosque nearby, you might inquire there or post something about wanting a native speaker to teach your son.

Also, I'll let you know what book our teacher is using. I know she has one picked out, but I don't know what it is yet. She did tell me that it's for writing Arabic for people who can't speak it. That's all I know.

that's so cool! I'll have to think where I could find an actual person. It's amazing the obvious things that don't occur to me. Though I'm feeling overwhelmed with activities and new baby...that might have to wait til I'm more myself. Though that could be good...if he STILL wants to do it then, he must want to! (he wanted to take ballet at 3 and I didn't let him, both out of gender-blinded-ness, and thinking it was a whim. a year later, ended up enrolling him for 3 years of happy dancing).

In the meantime, I'd love to get the book title!

thank you!

Arabic is pretty hard - right up there with Chinese - for native English speakers.

Your local community college should offer it. In Dallas you can find evening classes from the CC that teach conversational written and spoken "tourist" Arabic. I imagine that if your DS liked these classes, then the next step would be to ask the class instructor for options.

Some Arabic instructors teach Arabic using rote memorization from the Koran. This is not learning. Just something to think about and be aware of.