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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

It's that time of the year again doggirl-hi

This is probably my fifth year doing this, I guess I just love teaching Arabic, especially to comrades.

I enjoy making things make sense, and Arabic is absolutely perfect for this! It's its own language, one that is based on its own (magical, as comrade mathemachristian called it) root system, and not just a mishmash of different languages. You'll love learning about patterns, verb forms, and how to derive words from the magical root system, you'll see how powerful and expressive Arabic really is.

I have my own course material that I constantly improve upon, and it helps me adapt the lessons and study plan to my students' interests as well as their pace. I truly believe that language learning has to be fun and engaging, and things need to make sense, starting from the dots on the letters.

Let me know if you have any questions about Arabic or how I conduct my classes. As for the money, it's pay what you can since this is something I do on the side and enjoy immensely.

I have been teaching @mathemachristian@hexbear.net once a week for more than a year now and I asked him if he'd like to talk about his experience learning Arabic so far, I think what he wrote deserves its own post:

Learning arabic is great fun. Deciphering the meaning of sentences, deconstructing them and reconstructing them in a new language is a very fun and rewarding puzzle in its own right. And arabic makes the reconstruction very easy because it is very regular. Once you start to really delve into it, it also becomes easier and easier to vibe meaning of arabic words you don't know, not just from context, but because arabic constructs them in a way that makes them deliberately similar to words of similar meaning. You just find the magic 3 letters and the word is (likely to be) revealed! What most people probably are intimidated by is the script, but it actually is very easy, and the standard font doesn't do it's beauty justice. It's just a cursive script. If you know a latin cursive you already mastered a worse cursive.

I'm also very much enjoying that the lessons don't follow the standard A1 then A2 then B1 and so on format that involves memorizing a lot of sentences and stilted dialogues. The absence of a verb for "to be" makes it very easy to start constructing your own sentences, bypassing tenses, conjugation &c. and leave them for later.

Plus it opens dialogues that are great fun. Arab people are overjoyed at someone being able to say some basic sentences, or read/write arabic it opens a lot of doors and is just awesome fun. Surprise your friends by casually having a notebook full of arabic writing lying around!


If you want, you can dm me from a throwaway account, or contact me on Element.

And like I said last year, if there is interest for group lessons I'd be more than happy to do that.

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[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 35 points 1 week ago

This should give you some idea what the root system is like, and check my post history for lessons on the Arabic alphabet.

[-] rottenmummy@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 week ago
[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago

Arabic Sarf (morphology) is such a beautiful and important part of the language. One big pillar of this system is verb forms, which should show you some of the logic underpinning all this. Ofc that is just a simple overview of verb forms.

[-] StillNoLeftLeft@hexbear.net 20 points 1 week ago

This is amazing. I don't have the bandwith for this this year, but I hope you post again next year and then I can participate. This is something I've always wanted to learn.

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 26 points 1 week ago

Thanks comrade catgirl-heart I always feel a bit awkward doing this, but I don't wanna go "market" myself on those language learning sites, it seems soul-sucking. And I absolutely enjoy teaching comrades, it's enough that we get to talk culture from a materialist and anti-patriarchial lens. So I make this post once a year and cross my fingers that an interested comrade will see it, or maybe it'll give someone the push to go learn a second language doggirl-grin

[-] doleo@lemmy.one 12 points 1 week ago

I actually do teach on those platforms you hinted towards. Let me tell you, if you get any students from here, I’ll be infinitely more pleasant than the bigoted, chauvinistic, asinine crap that I have to listen to on a daily basis.

So, good on you for trying!

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 15 points 1 week ago

And these platforms make the students feel so entitled, for example on some of these platforms the teachers gotta reply within minutes to maintain a high ranking vis-a-vis the algorithm.

I've taught about 8 comrades so far and it has definitely been a very rewarding experience. I love my comrades and I love teaching them as well as sharing with them some aspects of my culture. Incidentally, would anyone be interested in some recommendations of Arab films to watch?

[-] woozy@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago

Incidentally, would anyone be interested in some recommendations of Arab films to watch?

yes please! doggirl-hi

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago

I'll make a post soon catgirl-salute

[-] Coyoteskull@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago

I'm glad to hear you do this yearly! I just can't right now due to life circumstances, but I'd so love to learn, especially from a fellow comrade. Thank you for such awesome work!

[-] mathemachristian@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago

I really cannot recommend it enough. It's such great fun if you have an inkling of an interest reach out and see if you can't make it work somehow. They really went beyond what I would have expected to make it accessible for me for instance.

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago

catgirl-heart And I really am glad we made it work because it has been a pleasure teaching you, comrade doggirl-grin

[-] ThermonuclearHoxha@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago

I guess I just love teaching Arabic, especially to comrades.

waow-based based-department

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago

Found this old meme

Your flaws are like the merits of capitalism; non-existent.

[-] Liketearsinrain@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 week ago

You're awesome for doing this :)

We have the best people, don't we folks.

[-] booty@hexbear.net 9 points 1 week ago

That sounds sick, thanks for offering. Maybe I'll take you up on it eventually. For now, I'm about a year deep into mandarin, and I barely have it in me to study for that haha

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

Good luck with your Mandarin journey.

[-] booty@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago

Thanks! I'm enjoying it, even if it's tricky!

[-] xijinpingist@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago

Everything they say about it being difficult is true. In fact, you can't even understand just how difficult it really is until about after 6-12 months of study. Then you can finally see just. how. high. that mountain really is. Everest is nothing, you know that mountain on Mars? Like that but more difficult.

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[-] Sta1kERR@piefed.zip 8 points 1 week ago

I'll join you on Element if I don't forget

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

I hope to see you soon

[-] DiscoAssBlazer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 week ago

A fellow Arab and i'm very glad to see you do this palestine-heart

[-] Champoloo@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

We internationalists should at least try to learn a second language. Remember not to use Duolingo though, it's "AI-first".

The world is not a global village, and not everyone speaks American.

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago

Remember not to use Duolingo

Many people are saying it, folks a-little-trolling

@SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net Doing that Trump bit reminded me of you, comrade catgirl-happy hope you're having a good day.

[-] unaware@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

I would love to learn Arabic someday, but Chinese is already hard enough for now haha. Regardless, keep up the good work comrade! palestine-heart

[-] Wisconcom@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

I tried to learn Arabic when I had a Muslim phase around 13-ish. I got started on the writing system and even tried to recite prayers in Arabic but never mastered it. To this day I don't know the Arabic writing system and it angers me. With that being said, I would be interested in learning it, at least in the near-future.

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

You can hmu whenever, and check my post history for lessons on the Arabic script.

[-] Big@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

Are all the Arabic speaking countries mutually intelligible?

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

That is an important question. What I teach is Modern Standard Arabic which is intelligible throughout the Arab world, and when the student gets to a solid place in MSA then we can learn a dialect as well. Arabic is diglossic, which I believe makes it even more interesting. First you'll learn the basics of standard/formal Arabic and then you'll see where the dialect has diverted and why, dialects are characterized by their very simplified grammar compared to MSA, and so I believe it makes the most sense to learn MSA and then see what simplifications occurred in colloquial, and learn about the foreign loanwords that entered it through conquest and whatnot. Sorry about the long reply doggirl-grin

[-] xijinpingist@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago

Nope. Just like Chinese, there are tons of dialects. The written language is the same but they are all pronounced differently.

[-] supdawg813@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

I am so down to learn Arabic but I'm worried that I won't be able to give it the time or attention it deserves.

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 9 points 1 week ago

I get it, it's not easy committing to something new. We could do a 2-week trial period and see how it goes. You are not gonna be making any major financial commitments, like buying textbooks. The important thing is to find the motivation to learn the language, the pace can be as slow as need be.

[-] SoloboiNanook@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

I took a few lessons a couple years back from this comrade. Life got in the way In a big way for me, but I can certainly say Prof knows whatsup. Very good teacher, and had no issues starting from absolute scratch. If you are interested, go for it, you wont regret it.

[-] RedDawn@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago

I wish I could learn Arabic but for now I need to focus on improving my Chinese and German language skills from basic to fluent, before I can start in on a brand new language. Its very cool that you are doing the good work of teaching Arabic to comrades!

Sold. I need to learn so i can speak with wifu. Mashallah

[-] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago

More than ever, I have a desire to get to the point where I can look at a sentence and be able to interpret it, and also make sentences beyond just "men el-mayeh lel-mayeh". The stage of "being able to sound it out and maybe pick out a word here and there" is feeling really awkward.

Time is a little bit more limited now but resources are less limited. Also I have a coworker who speaks Arabic, and no shortage of other Arabic speakers in the area.

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago

I can see that you have a certain goal in mind and so I think a class per week might be perfectly adequate for what you are aiming for. But if you don't have time for that, I can send you the pdf lessons over on Element.

[-] iThinkImDumb@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago

this sounds amazing and I think I would like to try but I don't understand quite how it works. you are giving 1on1 personal lessons for each person who wants it?? is it more like an online classroom setting like those 'zoom' meetings but on a different platform? is it all written learning or do your students speak with you audibly, or with each other? I would love to learn Arabic but I can't understand how it would be possible to do that not in a class setting or surrounded by people to speak it with you. sorry for a barrage of questions

[-] Prof_mu3allim@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago

you are giving 1on1 personal lessons for each person who wants it??

Yes, unfortunately there aren't that many comrades who wanna learn Arabic obama-sad We use a Zoom alternative and an online whiteboard, as well as a pdf lesson for each class. Also we use Element for instant messaging, so we can schedule the classes, share files/homework and so on. Let me know if you have any other questions!

[-] Jentu@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

Do you have any experience or opinions on the quality of programs like the Michel Thomas Method? I don't really have the time or resources to spend on language learning at the moment, but if I could prepare for next year or the year after with an audio tape on a commute, it might help a bit if the learning device is suitable?

[-] SuperZutsuki@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago

I think the Michel Thomas method is pretty good for getting a decent speaking/grammar base. There's not a lot of vocabulary but you learn quite a lot of grammar and there's a ton of repetition to really drill concepts into your brain. I've been doing the Mandarin lessons and having a good time. Thinking about starting Arabic, as well.

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this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026
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Chapotraphouse

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