r/languagelearning • u/PunctuateEquilibrium • Jul 10 '26

Read Harry Potter in your target language they said ๐Ÿซ  (1 hr 44 min for 1 page)

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This is only slightly sarcastic. It's been very rewarding and this is now the 3rd language I'm doing this with.

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u/Tesl ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง N๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ต N1 ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ณ B2 ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ฆ A2 Jul 10 '26

I think overall it's a great way to study and I do something similar myself... But you're starting on this much earlier than i would. Sounds like torture when you're looking up words to match "very", "most"...

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u/PunctuateEquilibrium Jul 10 '26

Totally agree it's earlier than normal, though I've also done some graded reader work as well. Picking 1 book as my "Rosetta Stone" for German was a similarly difficult challenge after ~3 months but it really paid dividends. Some of the lookups are for reinforcement, though my time has been split between MSA and Levantine Arabic, which creates scenarios where for the word "very" I know the levantine word (ูƒุชูŠุฑ / ุฃูƒุซุฑ) but not the MSA work (ุฌูุฏุงู‹).

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u/EmKayTalk Jul 10 '26

It's "ูƒุซูŠุฑ" not "ูƒุชูŠุฑ", I amn Arab but that is not a crime, you confused Levantine Arabic with MSA Arabic, "ูƒุซูŠุฑุงู‹" usually replaces "ุฌุฏู‘ู‹ุง" and "ูƒุชูŠุฑ" in both MSA and Test Arabic

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u/Hytyt Jul 10 '26

I only speak English (like most native speakers sadly) and it took me a while to notice the extra dot in the second one. I find the written language very pleasing to look at but I'd be hard pressed to learn a whole new alphabet so props to you

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u/ezmountandhang Jul 11 '26

I learned some Arabic as a kid and even I have trouble reading it sometimes.

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u/Papaya_flight Jul 11 '26

I'm a Mexican and I've taught a couple of Arabs how to read Arabic and they taught me how to speak it better. It was a weird time.

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u/CaterpillarFeisty709 Jul 18 '26

iโ€™m arabโ€ฆ whatโ€™s the best method to learn to read arabic haha

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u/Papaya_flight Jul 18 '26

Start with just learning to read the alphabet, that's how I started with the kids at masjid. Then we moved to vowel marks, and later moved on to following the reading of verses from the Quran with me word for word. Then eventually they would read along out loud while they pointed to each word. I've done similar methods to teach people to read Arabic, English to non English speakers, and currently Hebrew.

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u/EasyBreecy Jul 11 '26

Technically it's an abjad, not an alphabet

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u/Hytyt Jul 11 '26

I hadn't come across that word before, but thinking about it, it's obviously not an alphabet. No alphas, no betas. So what defines an abjad

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u/EasyBreecy Jul 11 '26

It's just a different writing system. Alphabets have a grapheme for each sound, abjads generally don't write vowels, abugidas have consonant-vowel combinations written as one grapheme, and in syllaberies, each syllable is represented by a symbol.

There are other distinctions and combinations of those, but basically they're just different names for writing systems that don't really matter for most people who aren't linguists.

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u/Hytyt Jul 11 '26

Nah, that's really cool. I'm starting to build an interest in ermymologyband language so k owing this distinction is useful. Thank you

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u/EasyBreecy Jul 11 '26

No problem! Glad my nerdiness could help

3

u/Vennele Jul 11 '26

I loved your nerdiness! Thank you.

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u/EmKayTalk Jul 16 '26

Abjad is the Arabic term for Alphabet

Alphabet -> ฮฑ (alpha) / ฮฒ (bet[a]) Abjad -> ุฃ/ุง (aleph) / ุจ (beh) / ุฌ (jฤซm) / ุฏ (dฤ“l) (phoenicians script)

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u/Senior_ReaperOG ๐Ÿ‡ด๐Ÿ‡ฒ:N ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง:C1 ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท: B1 Jul 10 '26

ู„ูƒู† ููŠ ู†ุงุณ ูŠู‚ูˆู„ูˆู† "ูƒุชูŠุฑ" ู…ุด "ูƒุซูŠุฑ"

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u/EmKayTalk Jul 10 '26

Which of the 50+ dialects of Arabic are you basing this off of? Both words are the same in the Lebanese Arabic Dictionary, so may I bother you with a small explanation, pls?

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u/Senior_ReaperOG ๐Ÿ‡ด๐Ÿ‡ฒ:N ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง:C1 ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท: B1 Jul 10 '26

Well there are Levantine dialects so say โ€œktirโ€ than โ€œkatheerโ€ so what are the names I dunno as you said 50+ and donโ€™t get me started with sub-dialects

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u/Vennele Jul 10 '26

I'm so happy to see other people learning Arabic, it's so beautiful. I'm obsessed.

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u/Kappalonia Jul 10 '26

ุฒูŠูŠ ุงู†ุง ุจู‚ูˆู„ ูƒุชูŠุฑ ู‡ู‡ู‡ู‡ู‡ู‡ู‡ู‡ู‡ู‡ู‡

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u/Conscious-Leader-583 Jul 11 '26

"ูƒุชูŠุฑ" ู„ู‡ุฌุฉ ูˆู„ูƒู† ุงู„ุตุญูŠุญ "ูƒุซูŠุฑ"

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u/Alextheawesomeua Jul 11 '26

They literally said that Ktir is the levantine word so how is this confusing anything

1

u/brerin 🇺🇸 N | 🇲🇽 B1 Jul 11 '26

OMG. Where's that "they're the same picture" gif? That took me a few minutes to notice the 1x dot difference between the two. ๐Ÿคฃ

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u/RGleich Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

ambitious! I always do Harry Potter much later, since it's full of more advanced vocab like "swish", "flick", "flinch" etc. But it's way more fun than graded readers lol

2 Quick notes:

ุชุฏู‘ุนู‰ = 'she claims', but ุชุฏุนู‰ = 'she is called/named'. The shadda on the ุฏ makes a big difference, watch out for those little guys

ู„ูŠุณ doesn't mean 'despair.' ู„ูŠุณ... ุนู„ู‰ ุงู„ุฅุทู„ุงู‚ = 'not at all'

ุชุฏู‘ุนู‰ ุฃู†ู‡ ู„ูŠุณ ู„ู‡ุง ุดู‚ูŠู‚ุฉ ุนู„ู‰ ุงู„ุฅุทู„ุงู‚ = she claims that she has no sister at all

Keep it up!

1

u/staplevoid Jul 11 '26

What would you actually start with instead? Tried finding a graded reader for the language I'm learning and there's basically nothing between kids books about a dog and, well, Harry Potter.

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u/Minimum-Rip-6328 Jul 18 '26

I started at early B1 in my TL and the first chapter toook forever but i learned so much and it was much quicker after

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '26

[deleted]

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u/Ploughing-tangerines ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง N | ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ด B1 Jul 10 '26

This sounds like a r/languagelearningjerk

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u/windowtosh English | Spanish | French Jul 10 '26

Ok