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Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

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Re: Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

#41

Post by ue_ »

alirazaq wrote: post #39
ue_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Using a romanized scripts makes all these subsequent steps with grammar and accents much harder. This is the exact problem with learning Japanese using roumaji (rouma ji = roman character; ローマ字), because you of course start to read the latin script with your starting accent (assuming of course your first language is written using the latin alphabet). However some textbooks persist with using it, despite being excell…

Except romaji isn't used to teach pronunciation, it's meant to help the student read while they are still getting familiar with kana; much like furigana for kanji. Japanese characters have one pronunciation in all circumstances (excluding diacritical modifications). Respectively in romaji, consonants and vowels will always have the same pronunciation. Compare that to American English where accents have been removed a…

>Except romaji isn't used to teach pronunciation

I know, but students will continue to treat it as a pronunciation guide anyway, unless told specifically how to pronounce otherwise. It's especially bad when the Japanese is supported by romaji way into the course, which fosters laziness in the student.

Re: Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

#42

Post by ue_ »

_samihasan_ wrote: post #30
ue_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Using a romanized scripts makes all these subsequent steps with grammar and accents much harder. This is the exact problem with learning Japanese using roumaji (rouma ji = roman character; ローマ字), because you of course start to read the latin script with your starting accent (assuming of course your first language is written using the latin alphabet). However some textbooks persist with using it, despite being excell…

Well, I must say that I fail to see the rationale of this argument as I speak other European languages and I haven't encountered this problem before. The mental process goes like this; I identify the language of text let's say Spanish and then like a switch in my brain is turned on for the Spanish pronunciation and then I proceed to read the text using the rules of the Spanish language while English is totally disabl…

I think the case is different for languages that use the same script, such as a European language learner learning another European language. The learner must learn to switch "modes" and this is reinforced all the time by any kind of reading, because the learner has no choice but to switch modes.

However this mode switching is not reinforced in the case where the script (in this case the Japanese script) is not latin-based.

I think I'm trying to say that native speakers of latin-based languages who are learning latin-based languages have to learn to change their mode of pronunciation, whereas if they were to learn a non-latin-based language they don't (and shouldn't) learn this at all, because in the long run it isn't useful.

Re: Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

#43

Post by involans »

Trying to explain glottal stops with English examples is pointless - "Apple" doesn't begin with a glottal stop in English; "fear" and "ear" differ only in the absence of /f/.

German does introduce a epenthetic glottal stop before word-initial vowels, but not English.

Also, attempting to explain /ɪ/ as "Fin" -> "fen" is also unhelpful.

Re: Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

#44

Post by vetinari »

_samihasan_ wrote: post #26
kahnpro wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been learning Russian for two years, and I can only agree with you. Learning to read and write Cyrillic script was the easiest part of this adventure. And I think learning all sorts of nuances of the language would be more complicated using Latin script. Latin script also hides the fact that, even though the letters are similar, they really are different sounds. I feel like it would only hinder pronunciation.

The comparison of Arabic with Russian is not sound as Arabic is written with diacritics which in and of itself is a big plus if you're a native speaker or an experienced one but not so for inexperienced or novice speakers while Russian to my understanding is more explicit about that part.

Do I understand you right, that Arabic uses diacritics when written in Arabic script? Or did you mean Arabic when written in Latin script?

Using diacritics is usually a sign, that the language uses a script that does not map very well to the target language, so the latter would be understandable.

Slavic languages would the same in this regards. Those, that are written in Latin script, have to use diacritics. Those that use Cyrillic, do not need to.

Re: Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

#45

Post by varjag »

vetinari wrote: post #44
_samihasan_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comparison of Arabic with Russian is not sound as Arabic is written with diacritics which in and of itself is a big plus if you're a native speaker or an experienced one but not so for inexperienced or novice speakers while Russian to my understanding is more explicit about that part.

Do I understand you right, that Arabic uses diacritics when written in Arabic script? Or did you mean Arabic when written in Latin script? Using diacritics is usually a sign, that the language uses a script that does not map very well to the target language, so the latter would be understandable. Slavic languages would the same in this regards. Those, that are written in Latin script, have to use diacritics. Those th…

All Cyrillic alphabets I am aware of do use diacritics. Й, Ў, Ё, Ґ..

Re: Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

#46

Post by samatman »

involans wrote: post #43

Trying to explain glottal stops with English examples is pointless - "Apple" doesn't begin with a glottal stop in English; "fear" and "ear" differ only in the absence of /f/. German does introduce a epenthetic glottal stop before word-initial vowels, but not English. Also, attempting to explain /ɪ/ as "Fin" -> "fen" is also unhelpful.

At least in my accent, the 'tt' in written is a glottal stop.

Re: Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

#47

Post by vetinari »

varjag wrote: post #45
vetinari wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I understand you right, that Arabic uses diacritics when written in Arabic script? Or did you mean Arabic when written in Latin script? Using diacritics is usually a sign, that the language uses a script that does not map very well to the target language, so the latter would be understandable. Slavic languages would the same in this regards. Those, that are written in Latin script, have to use diacritics. Those th…

All Cyrillic alphabets I am aware of do use diacritics. Й, Ў, Ё, Ґ..

While you are of course right, that there exist such characters, Belorussian and Ukrainian are not all Cyrillic alphabets.

But then, I'm also not an expert on all Slavic languages, I just remember when I was taught Russian and azbuka years ago, there was none and that caught my attention.

Re: Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

#48

Post by varjag »

vetinari wrote: post #47
varjag wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Cyrillic alphabets I am aware of do use diacritics. Й, Ў, Ё, Ґ..

While you are of course right, that there exist such characters, Belorussian and Ukrainian are not all Cyrillic alphabets. But then, I'm also not an expert on all Slavic languages, I just remember when I was taught Russian and azbuka years ago, there was none and that caught my attention.

Й and ё are in Russian alphabet. In schools it is never highlighted that those are diacritics, so to many it doesn't register.

Re: Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

#49

Post by skellystudios »

involans wrote: post #43

Trying to explain glottal stops with English examples is pointless - "Apple" doesn't begin with a glottal stop in English; "fear" and "ear" differ only in the absence of /f/. German does introduce a epenthetic glottal stop before word-initial vowels, but not English. Also, attempting to explain /ɪ/ as "Fin" -> "fen" is also unhelpful.

I've seen it described as the sound or throat action in the middle of "uh oh!".

I found that kinda useful.

Re: Show HN: Eskéndereyya – Learn How to Read and Write Arabic in Latin Script

#50

Post by vostok »

varjag wrote: post #48
vetinari wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you are of course right, that there exist such characters, Belorussian and Ukrainian are not all Cyrillic alphabets. But then, I'm also not an expert on all Slavic languages, I just remember when I was taught Russian and azbuka years ago, there was none and that caught my attention.

Й and ё are in Russian alphabet. In schools it is never highlighted that those are diacritics, so to many it doesn't register.

Are those diacritics? I tend to think of them as separate letters just as å and ä are separate letters in Swedish. Of course, ё is usually written as е so I may well be wrong about that.

This is different from è, é, ë, and ê in French where these are all e, but with different diacritics.

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