#arabizi

Okay this confused me too when I first started learning Arabic and it actually put me off for quite a bit. This style of writing is the Arabic chat alphabet but it can also be known as Araby, Arabizi, Arabish, it’s used over the internet and for sending texts when the Arabic alphabet is either unavailable or difficult to use. It’s very informal. I’ve written the meanings below, but honestly it wont make any sense if you don’t know the alphabet and how letters are pronounced. 

THIS site is what I used to learn the Arabic alphabet 

2 = hamza ء

3 = ^ayn  ع

3′ = ghayn غ

7 = haa ح

7′ or 5 = xaa  خ

9 = saad  ص 

9′ = daad  ض

6 = taa  ط

I have made many errors while learning the Arabic language and all my mistakes have come back to bite me in the butt. I am just really kicking myself right now. I studied Arabic for nearly 6 years and it was rough; I have to go back and re-learn EVERYTHING. If you are learning Arabic, please heed my advice and learn from my mistakes.

Arabic is a very diverse language

One thing that I came to learn the hard way is that there are many different kinds of Arabic. (Click here to take a more detailed look at the many types of Arabic. Or just look at the paragraph below to read my very simplistic explanation.)

Modern Standard Arabic vs. Regional Dialects of Arabic

There is Modern Standard Arabic (fusha-click here) and there are regional dialects of Arabic (amiyya-click here). The colloquial Arabic (dialects) and grammar (of dialects) differs from country to country (obviously--because they are dialects, sorry I know I am being redundant). This means that people in Saudi Arabia speak a different dialect and have different Arabic grammar than people from Iraq or Palestine. Most native Arabic speakers can understand one another just fine regardless of the dialect they are communicating in; however, for non-native Arabic speakers who are just beginning to learn the Arabic language, it is very complicated and confusing. For example, the word for "table" is tawilah in Modern Standard Arabic, but it is tarabeza in Egyptian Arabic, but in Iraq, they may call it a mayz.

Don't waste your time trying to learn Modern Standard Arabic

When I first began learning Arabic 6 years ago, I chose to study the Hejaz dialect (Hejazi Arabic-click here) of Saudi Arabia, as well as Modern Standard Arabic (see here). I eventually switched to the Egyptian dialect (click here to learn about Egyptian Arabic) and if I had started with this dialect, I think learning Arabic would have been a heck of a lot easier. 

Also, choosing to learn Modern Standard Arabic first was an awful decision because Modern Standard Arabic is not spoken by anyone on the face of this Earth as a native language. It is archaic, and it is grammatically more complicated to learn than spoken dialects. And by focusing on Modern Standard Arabic, I virtually could understand no one (because everyone else communicated with me in various Arabic dialects). My friend compared Modern Standard Arabic to the way people spoke in the day of Shakespeare. Sure, some (not all) people might be able to interpret what you are saying (with a lot of effort) but no one actually speaks like that.

Learn the Arabic alphabet and the Arabic script from Day 1

Another mistake I made was not learning the Arabic alphabet immediately (click here for a video teaching the alphabet). Instead, I resorted to Arabizi/Franco Arabic (click here and here to learn more and see a chart). Arabizi/Franco Arabic is basically like Arabic written with English alphabets (transliteration-here). Arabic script is actually what is called an abjad (click here for a more detailed explanation), which means that is is an alphabet script primarily made up of consonants without vowels. For example, transliteration of an Arabic word like “computer” written in Arabizi/Franco Arabic looks like this: kmbywtr. Do you understand what I mean? Let me try to give you another example. If you wrote the word “rain” in Arabic, it would look like this: مطر but the transliteration of the word “rain” would be written like this: mtr. If you said “How is your health, what are you doing?” it would look like this in Arabic script: كيف صحتك، شو عمتعمل؟ But, then the transliteration of this Arabic phrase might actually look like this: kif/keef sa7tak, chou/shu 3am ta3mil?

Does this make sense? Do you see what I am trying to explain to you?

When I began learning Arabic, all I focused on what the transliteration and writing the words with English alphabets instead of learning the Arabic alphabet and using the Arabic script. The problem with this is that when you encounter a new word, you will have no idea how to pronounce it unless you hear it or someone spells it phonetically for you. This is because the Arabic alphabet doesn't translate directly into "A,B,C, etc" of English. The Arabic alphabet consists of sounds, which allow you to learn how to spell, read, and speak Arabic. So, by focusing on Arabizi/Franco Arabic (writing Arabic with English alphabets instead of proper Arabic script--see what I learned here), I could communicate somewhat in writing and I could read some of what other people sent me (if it was also in Arabizi/Franco Arabic), but I could not speak it correctly and I had no clue what other people were saying when they spoke Arabic to me. It was a huge mess. Over time, I learned to make educated guesses when it came to my pronunciation of words and phrases, but avoiding learning the actual Arabic alphabet, avoiding learning how to read actual Arabic script, and just relying on transliterations (I did NOT say translation)-(this link here helps explain what I mean by transliteration) was a huge mistake.

Beginners should never focus on Arabizi/Franco Arabic

Please, please DO NOT resort to Arabizi/Franco Arabic because you will never learn Arabic efficiently. It is just a lazy way out. Trust me; six years later, I am having to re-learn absolutely everything all over again.

Advice/Questions

Arabish, and i don't mean the arabic english writing style

When I talk about arabish, I don’t mean the arabic english writing form we’ve all become too familiar with – the arabic chat alphabet. No, I’m talking about when people speak a mix of arabic and english.

Just this morning, I was enjoying my traditional saturday waffle and pancake at Dean & Deluca and the table – not far enough from me – were having casual conversations mixing and matching arabic…

Englishic vs Arabizi.