[HN Gopher] Show HN: Parallel Arabic - Arabic reading and writin...
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Show HN: Parallel Arabic - Arabic reading and writing practice
I have made a website called Parallel Arabic which enables users to
read arabic texts alongside the same text in English. Each story
features a dictionary of key words, transliteration of the text,
and full native audio recordings, creating a fully self-contained
learning environment without the need for outside resources.
https://parallel-arabic.com/stories There is also a section for
writing where you can practice writing over 4000 words, with
realtime spellchecking. The tool contains a fully featured Arabic
virtual keyboard, built for english speaker
Author : selmetwa
Score : 68 points
Date : 2024-04-01 15:23 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (parallel-arabic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (parallel-arabic.com)
| pseingatl wrote:
| How about using Arabizi as an option for beginners? If oral
| fluency is sought, being able to read--while nice--isn't
| absolutely necessary. Arabizi is widely recognized-people who
| didn't already know the Roman alphabet learned it to text on
| their phones before smartphones became a thing.
| selmetwa wrote:
| There is an option to view the transliteration next to the
| arabic and english text as well, you just have to toggle
| "Sentence view"
| bluish29 wrote:
| I think the purpose of this tool is the opposite. It is aimed
| at a person who know English and want to learn Arabic. So that
| people used franco arabic because of lack of Arabic support is
| another matter. Those were people who already know arabic and
| how to form words and sentences following its general
| structure. Also franco is not widely used anymore as before. I
| would suggest not to start the learning journey using it as a
| bridge.
|
| Also while therr are dialects in arab world. Most of the people
| will read and write in formal Arabic which sometime will differ
| from how you speak. It is rare to speak formal arabic but the
| norm for reading and writing.
|
| On a personal level, I find it much easier if someone either
| used English or Arabic to communicate with me. Franco feels
| like searching for meanings because there is no standard and
| people will write it differently and in many times you can't
| know if this was a typo or the problem is that you are old now
| and cannot keep up with how teenagers use it.
| selmetwa wrote:
| That is correct, this tool assumes a basic understanding of
| the Arabic alphabet, and I think in the long run being able
| to read the arabic script will accelerate your learning
| progress much faster than just using franco.
| hannofcart wrote:
| Arabizi has utilitarian value but if you're learning languages
| with more than just pratical considerations, I really recommend
| learning the original Arabic alphabet.
|
| I might be a bit of a romantic here but I think it's amongst
| the most beautiful I've seen. I am not a native Arab nor am I a
| Muslim.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I never touched a line of source code until after college. In
| college I studied history, focusing on the "Middle East" [1]. I
| took 3 years of Arabic in a (failed) attempt to use Arabic texts
| as primary sources in my thesis. Short story long, something
| about the highly structured and patterned nature of Arabic primed
| my mind for programming and made me more likely to enjoy
| programming. If you're looking for a pure intellectual pursuit,
| akin to how people recommend studying math just for the new ways
| of thinking that it provides, I heartily recommend studying
| Arabic
|
| [1] Historians often call attention to that phrase because it has
| controversial history and connotations
| gumby wrote:
| You might enjoy this blog post which (after a few paragraphs)
| is about a programming language structured around roots
| similarly to how Arabic is structured:
| https://quuxplusone.github.io/blog/2024/03/31/ed-catmurs-tri...
| BWStearns wrote:
| Wicked cool! I like this format of practice. Just found a small
| bug though. The click-to-translate for a given word seems to miss
| the target of click somewhere. It's translating `umar and sar@ as
| listen (and in the latter case the click gets `wsar@` instead of
| just sar@.)
| selmetwa wrote:
| Ah, "Listen" is actually a button you can click to hear the
| audio. Only keywords (those highlighted) actually have the
| translation included.
| BWStearns wrote:
| ohhh haha. I just realized that. I clicked on madina first so
| when I clicked elsewhere I assumed it was the same element
| and I didn't notice the style difference. User error!
| selmetwa wrote:
| Source code is here for anyone curious:
| https://github.com/selmetwa/parallel-arabic
| bluish29 wrote:
| Good work. I think you will need to add to the website that you
| mean Egyptian Arabic dialect. Also on safari mobile there is
| problem rendering the word character during writing.
|
| I couldn't find stories other than omar's. Is there more or this
| just what is available now?
|
| Also if you are using Franco in the sentence view, I would
| suggest defining the alphabetical definition of characters
| because they are not standard there. Specially outside Egyptian
| arabic.
| selmetwa wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback, definitely need to polish the mobile
| experience. And yeah as of now just the one story as a POC, I
| plan on adding more in the future.
| chargerxx wrote:
| Super great idea!!
| selmetwa wrote:
| Thank you!
| pcardoso wrote:
| One for bookmarking and following, thanks!
|
| Tried learning Arabic from Duolingo for more than a year and
| loved learning my way around the script at least.
| wizwit999 wrote:
| I like the format but these seem grammatically incorrect written
| down in arabic, e.g. missing articles etc, I guess you're going
| for street Arabic but you should have it in fusha, it's easier to
| go other way around
| selmetwa wrote:
| Ah yeah I should specify this is in the egyptian dialect
| elsadek wrote:
| Just note this is not arabic, it's a dialect unfortunately.
| gfaure wrote:
| Both s and S are transcribed as "s" -- is this really a common
| convention?
| z_open wrote:
| There are two characters for t, h, s, d, th, and k.
|
| The two characters for each are pronounced a bit different.
| Narishma wrote:
| This seems to be the Egyptian dialect, not standard Arabic.
| selmetwa wrote:
| That is correct, I should have been more specific
| greazy wrote:
| This is great. I might finally be able to understand the Egyptian
| shows.
|
| My Arabic is terrible. In the first lesson I learned a new word!
| selmetwa wrote:
| My Arabic is terrible also haha, part of my impetus for making
| the tool
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(page generated 2024-04-01 23:01 UTC)