31–40 of 46 posts
Looks great. I just have a question. Why do you call it "itneen" instead of "Etneen" or more formally "Ethnayn"? I understand that you're probably leaning toward using Egyptian Arabic (I am Egyptian by the way) because it is the easiest dialect, but to be honest I myself got confused for two seconds. Edit: I went through more questions, and you're definitely using Egyptian Arabic, not formal Arabic.
Edit: Well, It seems I’m late and already been said in the comments!
Is it spaced repetition? Is it a specific kind of spaced repetition?
A bit of a tangent, but could someone tell me if I'm wrong about the following: Arabic being read right to left while digit significance increases right to left means they use little-endian (although it looks like they say numbers in a middle-endian fashion like in German). This means users of left to right scripts made a mistake by not reversing the digits when copying the system. What I can't find quickly is whethe…
When speaking the numbers, you are right, the rules are the same as in German, e.g. Fifty-one is Whahed-wa-Khamseen, so similar to German Ein-und-fünfzig.
P.S: I'm German and live in Saudi, but my knowledge of Arabic is limited, so take it with a pinch of salt.
Could you please share more details about what sort of algorithm you use for the questions? Is it spaced repetition? Is it a specific kind of spaced repetition?
Give me a day or so for a writeup then I come back to you :)
You might want to consider adding keyboard shortcuts for the keys 1-4 corresponding to the answer order so that the questions can be answered more quickly on desktop. I also agree with the others as far as spelling variations, maybe you want to include Modern Standard Arabic and potentially other dialect versions as well.
Is there a term/phrase similar to Japanese Kanji/Romanji referring to the use of Latin script for the Arabic word? When it gets to a card pairing the latin script with the Arabic, I was totally guessing until getting enough to start making the association in my head. I'm guessing starting from blank sheet of paper to using this as learning Arabic numbers isn't the intended use case, however, I now know 0, 1, 2, and 5…
I'm sort of using it as a from-scratch-learning tool myself (and I made sort of the same experience as you, after a while the first numbers start to stick) - although I definitely agree that it is very much a "getting thrown into the pool" approach to teaching.
In my head, I call the usage of Latin script for Arabic words "transliteration", which I believe is the general term for expressing a word in another script system. Not sure if there is a specific one for Arabic/Latin..
My initial reaction before seeing the site was "but the numbers we use are arabic", of course, I realized you were trying to link number to spoken language. Are arabic numbers harder to speak than any other language? Numbers seem to be the first thing to learn, and are rather simple, or is there a reason in Arabic that they are difficult, or more needed than in other languages?
I don't think Arabic numbers are necessarily the hardest of all, but coming from English, they are certainly tougher than, say, Spanish: The numerals are different, and so is the script in the long-form. It's "one-twenty" instead of "twenty-one" so to speak. And counting to 10 already requires quite a few of the really hard, uniquely Arabic sounds, like the 'ain. So yeah, not trivial :D
You can certainly learn them without this project, but you definitely have to seriously practice in some way..
A bit of a tangent, but could someone tell me if I'm wrong about the following: Arabic being read right to left while digit significance increases right to left means they use little-endian (although it looks like they say numbers in a middle-endian fashion like in German). This means users of left to right scripts made a mistake by not reversing the digits when copying the system. What I can't find quickly is whethe…
Eastern Arabic digits are read left-to-right, surprisingly. So e.g. in license plates, phone numbers, etc. (where you read the digits separately), you go left-to-right. When speaking the numbers, you are right, the rules are the same as in German, e.g. Fifty-one is Whahed-wa-Khamseen, so similar to German Ein-und-fünfzig. P.S: I'm German and live in Saudi, but my knowledge of Arabic is limited, so take it with a pinc…
Additional fun fact, the locals here don't actually seem to be aware that they read numbers the other way 'round. I pointed this out to two Egyptians now, both of whom told me that they never noticed. What can I say, I guess it's all habit and intuition...