I’m going to talk to you about the first steps of learning Arabic, studying the Arabic for the purpose of understanding the Quran and just so everybody again has a heads up. If you are interested in learning Arabic to help you understand the Quran I think you’ll find this discussion beneficial.
What’s the first step to start learning Arabic
Starting from reading is actually way easier than starting from listening, you want to start from the reading and then build our way up all the way to listening is our goal really.
I mean I want to get to the point where I’m listening to the Imam or site to Quran, and I can just make total sense of it until the car comes to an end and I’m engaged with the words of Allah, that’s a final skill that’s like when you’ve reached your goal kind of and in your study of Arabic, that’s a pretty major milestone it’s not the highest milestone, what’s a pretty major milestone.
when you can stand in prayer and understand even picking things up that’s pretty cool and point, where anything you recited maybe one or two words you’re missing and then you know we can start getting there soon, but eventually you want to get to the you can look those up or you can ask the person who led the prayer here what did you mean by what word is that what surah was that from and you can find that out and build that..
In any case so I’ve started with four skills once again because I want you to remember the stuff we started with the output skills writing and speaking and we eliminated those for the purpose of Quran study then we talked about listening and reading and we eliminated basically listening for now we will build it slowly but reading is what we’re gonna focus you’re gonna read the Quran and try to make sense of what you are reading and that’s cool that’s actually a pretty easy way to narrow down your focus.
Select your goal of learning Arabic
When it comes to learning any language, you want to be able to acquire four skills okay there any language that you’re good at you want to be able to say I have four skills in that language those skills are, reading writing listening and speaking.
The way to organize those skills that your teacher will get you to say something, speaking I’ll get you the same my name is this or here’s how you say hello or here’s how you say welcome here’s how you say good evening etc.
that’s speaking they’ll try to introduce you to the alphabet of that language that’s writing obviously they’ll say something and expect that you understand what they said that’s listening. and then of course they’ll put words on the board or in your textbook and they’ll expect you to read it in that language. the way it’s supposed to be pronounced that’s reading I want you to take those four skills reading writing speaking and listening and restructure them reorganize them in your mind again.
Actually, we’re not even learning Arabic for a general purpose we’re learning Arabic to understand the Quran it’s a very specific purpose our entire.
Focus on 2 skills is way easier than focusing on 4 skills
Focusing on two skills is way easier than focusing on four skills isn’t it liking your works already cut by half that’s already the case and now so you’re already in a much easier position to be able to get to your goal and you have to learn to get there the road has been cut by several miles.
You know so that’s already motivating, but even within that let’s think about this you know I like to think of reading and writing, reading and listening as input like information is coming in and you’re
processing that information, for example if I’m listening to Arabic, I’m trying to process that information that it goes through my ears and my brains trying to make sense of what’s being said the same way if I’m reading my eyes are taking these words and they’re making I’m trying to make sense of it in my head.
I’ll tell you Anaka are you good, good okay I’ll go that that’s not gonna happen they’re gonna keep going you’re still stuck on the first word they’re done with the surah Allah well listening requires that you have the ability to process.
what’s being said quickly and you’re keeping up with what’s being said and that’s gonna be a lot harder skill to acquire that’s not gonna come right away, but when you’re reading something on your own that’s on your own pace you’re not dependent on the pace of another if you’re gonna take 10 minutes to recite al-fatiha that’s up to you because it’s on your terms
Shall I focused on writing or understanding?
Writing is not a top priority, if you’re studying Arabic for the purpose of the Quran especially those of you that are trying to study this part-time you have limited time to study anyway and you want to make the most of every minute of effort you’re going to put in to learn why would you spend time learning and prioritizing something that won’t take you to your immediate goal, so writing is basically you put an X on it in the beginning.
We’re not going to focus on writing, the same thing about speaking, I mean okay you know now how to say that it’s the weather is nice today or it’s sunny today, so what like how’s that going to help you understand when the imam is reciting. the prayer or when you’re reciting the Quran so your speaking skills are about you producing language. you producing words and you expressing yourself it’s not about understanding the Quran so as an early skill set even though in a normal Arabic classroom these are or a foreign language classroom.
Know the most important skills of Arabic language
Study of the language is focused primarily first on a book and then everything else in that language that’s secondary to us right if that’s the case then of those four skills two skills become less important in the beginning at least anyway they become less important so speaking becomes less important and writing becomes less important because for the average Muslim who just wants to understand the Quran they’re not going to sit there and write.
We are not going to write it and even if we never learned how to write it properly it wouldn’t make a difference. We are not interested in writing first, we are interested in understanding.
let’s input but when you’re speaking or writing its output, you’re producing stuff right so for the purposes of understanding the text of the Quran the sacred text we’re focused on input we’re
focused primarily on input now within input one of them is a lot harder than reading why because when the imam starts reciting( Audhu billahi min ash-shaitani rajim bismillah al rahman al Rahim) in pray now and they’re not stopping for you to sing in now by the way do you know what it is let me tell you that’s the vocabulary and like news for you because you’re a new Arabic learner so I’ll recite extra slow for you so I’ll just say in uh everybody got that okay.
