This is a thread for feedback on my Egyptian Arabic course The Natural World. You can post questions, request more items or point out errors.
Lately I don’t have regular access to a laptop. I can add/edit items on mobile, but audio is much more difficult.
I have trouble with recording audio directly through Memrise. My usual way was to record the words on my mp3 player, then use Audacity to cut the audio into individual items and save as mp3. Then I would upload the audio files to Memrise.
If you have any suggestions on how to record audio with a better method, I’d be glad to try it out.
Thanks for your quick reply. It sounds like a pretty labor intensive way, recording cutting and uploading. I did it once for the audio of a language course CD. I sometimes have trouble recording through Memrise. I found two possible problems.
The wrong or no microphone is selected through your system configuration (it could also be muted)
Flash wants you to allow a microphone first. There is an option to remember your choice.
I’m not sure if this applies to your system though.
I found your travelling set, so I still have enough to do.
I enjoy using your courses and am wondering if there is any chance you might create one with more a more integrated approach to grammar and structure? EA is so different to MSA, and it’s difficult to find materials explaining how to construct a sentence, word placement, etc. Another idea might be a course of colloquialisms, such as common phrases, the way in which people say things, rather than just the words, which might not always be used in the same context in both languages. I really appreciate that you speak/write both at a native level, and am looking forward to any further additions to the already excellent selections you have made available. شكرا علع كل حاجة
I got a new phone and yeppie recording for Forvo now works! I tried to record directly on Memrise, but it doesn’t support Chrome for Android. My thought is to record the audio on Forvo, download it, then upload to Memrise. Still time consuming but a workaround till there’s hopefully an option to create and edit courses on mobile.
Will slowly add missing audio to the course. If you want to add some more vocab to it, you can let me know the words you’d like to know. You can just use English if you don’t know what they are in Arabic.
I’d love to make more courses or add more to the existing ones, but I can’t promise anything at the moment. I’m depending on mobile devices these days, so it’s hard to create/edit courses (though not impossible).
I’ll work on adding the missing audio before starting a new course. I’m not sure how to create/arrange a grammar course. I suppose I could make a course for verbs and their conjugations to start with.
I had a book called Kallemni Arabi Aktar (or something like that) for EA, but I just relocated to another counrty and didn’t bring it. We never learn EA grammar as native speakers so explaining it without having teaching experience or reference books isn’t easy.
Just little corrections:
Khadijah = خديجة
شكرا على كل حاجة (it’s understood and grammatically correct, though not a common EA expression)
That’s good to hear but a pity you still can’t record directly. Hopefully
this function will be added soon. I’m still doing your sets about
travelling and the natural world. They seem pretty complete so there’s no
need for extra words.
I am working strictly off of my mobile these days, so I completely understand the difficulty, and the frustration. But an eventual verb course with full conjugations and audio would be amazing. There are loads of verb courses on memrise, of course, but with only the root form usually provided, their use as vocabulary devices are limited.
That book sounds amazing. I have looked all over for EA learning materials, but while there are a number of items, full grammatical courses covering the structure of the language basically don’t exist.
Thanks for the corrections. I realized the spelling of your name after, but didn’t have the opportunity to go back and change it. However, despite having used the second phrase numerous times with a number of Egyptians, no one has ever corrected me or told me it sounds strange. One of the most domoralising aspects of learning a language as an adult-- you’re essentially on your own, because no one seems much inclined to help!
Just wanted to let you know that I found the book you mentioned. It is part of a full series that goes from beginner to advanced in EA. I ordered the first book already. I would not call myself a beginner, but my knowledge is still patchwork and I will really enjoy having a comprehensive guide to grammar and syntax. Thanks so much for the suggestion!
I recently completed your Natural World course. I heard you added a lot of
audio! It is great to hear voice again. I’m also still doing the travelling
set.
@kolinahr
مرحبا، كيف حالك؟
I think that if you want to learn grammar, you should check sources teaching modern arabic (fusha فُصْحَى), because the sentence structure is not really different between fusha and arabic dialects. I suggest that you start with these books:
Thanks so much for your suggestions. I have previously studied fuSHa a bit but because I am learning EA for direct communication, I prefer not to confuse myself mixing the two Arabics. When I have achieved a higher level of fluency in EA, I do intend to return to study traditional Arabic for reading Quran, so perhaps I might make use of the texts you recommended then.
Long time no updates on this course. I finally added all the missing audio (two left, but I should have them added today inshallah). I noticed some words were duplicated, so I deleted the ones without audio. I thought Memrise didn’t allow you to add duplicate words in the same course (definitely shouldn’t).
Do let me know if you find any duplicates that I missed!
Now that this course is all done, I’m looking for ideas on how to organise a course for verbs and their conjugation.
Will look around the forum for ideas and let you know once I start working on a new course. It will be a long in progress course for sure.
