Learning a language... when I already know it

July 8, 2017 6:29 AM

I'm bilingual, but my English has always been lightyears stronger than my Arabic, particularly because I was never formally taught Arabic - I picked it up around the house and during yearly trips to Sudan. What's the best way to improve my weak spots, like spelling and grammar, without having to deal with the other stuff that beginners would learn?

I'm bilingual, but my English has always been lightyears stronger than my Arabic. I grew up in Virginia, so I spoke English with friends and strangers, learned in English at school, and used the Internet in English. But I learned Arabic in a much more piecemeal fashion. To my parents' credit, they worked hard to keep me attached to my culture . I spoke a mix of Arabic and English with my parents. I've spent almost every summer since I was very young in Sudan, where English is rare. I also learned a lot of my Arabic, funnily enough, reading subtitles to English films and TV.

But, unlike my sister (who's more fluent than I am), I've never had much in the way of formal schooling. The extent of it has two semesters of Elementary Arabic, targeted at beginners. The result of this is that, despite the fact that I'm fairly fluent (and often even think in Arabic), I sometimes feel like a kid. I make a lot of grammar mistakes, especially with gender/number agreement, verb forms, and general nuances that I'm not familiar with. Reading and writing are slow and painful processes, especially because it can be easier to hide mistakes when I'm speaking. My spelling and my reading aloud are also atrocious.

But here's my issue: most Arabic materials I've seen are targeted at people who are learning the language from their ABCs. Intermediate classes are a no-go, because I don't really know the basic principles from intro classes, but intro classes are horifically dull for me. I thought about maybe trying to compress the kind of curriculum that an Arabic-only grade school might have for their kids, but I'm not sure if that's the right way to go about it or even how to go about it.

So what do I do, Ask MeFi?

posted by amohield to Education (12 answers total)

Best answer: I don't know anything about Arabic, but you're what's called a "heritage speaker" of the language. That might be a useful term to look for.
posted by madcaptenor at 6:35 AM on July 8, 2017 [8 favorites]

You could ask someone who teaches a class if they would work with you one-on-one to target your knowledge gaps and not spend time on things you already know. This could be on a private tutoring basis or it could mean joining a class and sometimes fully participating in the class and sometimes doing other work off to the side while they are learning things you already know - or skipping those classes and having a separate make-up session.

Alternatively, it sounds like you're really aware of the areas you want to work on, so you could get a textbook, focus on the relevant chapters and ignore the other stuff, and supplement with on-line tools and/or help from family/friends.
posted by bunderful at 6:39 AM on July 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: For French it has really helped me to read in the language (including using the internet). Somehow even though I'm not actively studying grammar I still pick up on it. That combined with bunderful's suggestion of reviewing your gaps in a textbook would probably help you make a lot of progress. Writing is also extremely helpful since as you noted it is much harder to "cheat". Even though these things are difficult for you I recommend starting with them. Eventually they'll get easier and you'll find you're making progress. A good place for writing is italki as you can have native speakers correct your texts. Just start looking up all the grammar concepts you don't master and you will learn a lot.
posted by newsomz at 6:53 AM on July 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

Could you talk to your sister in Arabic? Everyone says that conversing with a native speaker is the best way to take your language learning to the next level. Your sister will probably be a little more helpful and forgiving.

What I've always done is to read newspapers in the languages I'm learning. I especially like reading stories about things like US political news, since I already know the basic facts and that lets me concentrate on the grammar and usage.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:18 AM on July 8, 2017

Maybe just try the intermediate class and see how it goes? You'll most likely be behind on some things but ahead on others. You'll probably learn a lot.
posted by mskyle at 8:30 AM on July 8, 2017

I second the reading. I never had a proper English class from 1st to 6th grade, but my English is totally fine because I read voraciously.
posted by tooloudinhere at 8:50 AM on July 8, 2017

Best answer: Nearly all university language programs have heritage speaker tracks.
posted by k8t at 12:49 PM on July 8, 2017

I found that reading interesting but simply novels helped a ton. YA fiction or detective stories or whatever is gripping enough to motivate you to read it but is not high level prose.
posted by fshgrl at 2:39 PM on July 8, 2017

Best answer: You can often find books written in two languages, side-by-side - I've found books like that at several different reading levels. Like this is my favorite one in Spanish. Google gives me this one for Arabic.

With Japanese there's one app I use to practice just grammar and another for just writing so you can probably find narrow-focus apps like that for Arabic. I just looked on the Android store and there seem to be some, though I can't vouch for their quality.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 6:49 PM on July 8, 2017

Best answer: Maybe change over to watching Arabic shows with English subtitles?

There is another site called lang-8.com that you can post text on and have people correct what you've written, and you have to in turn correct other people. There are a lot of people who want to have their English corrected. You could challenge yourself to write journal entries on there regularly.

One thing I am really finding useful right now is an app called HelloTalk - you can do brief posts, Facebook-style and have them corrected by native speakers, and more importantly you can connect with people and text chat with them or record voice messages back and forth. Again there are a ton of people who want to learn English who will want to talk to you. The app sort of has Google Translate functionality built in to it so you can translate what you want to say, what the other person said, etc with the touch of a button, and it's easy to post corrections to your conversation partners. The way I am using it with most of these people is that they write or speak English to me and I write or speak French or Swedish back to them. Awesome app.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 8:20 PM on July 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: What about finding grammar books that a young Sudanese student would use in school? It should be similar in that children know the language from speaking with their family, but haven't learned the details of grammar. Flip through the parts where you need clarification, skip the others.
posted by hannahelastic at 12:57 AM on July 9, 2017

The above suggestions are great. I would suggest adding some flashcards - my favorite flashcard software is the excellent and free Anki.

* Post as often as you can on lang-8.com or iTalki (similar to lang-8). When you get corrections, immediately make flashcards for each correction you got - this is something you haven't learned yet (or you wouldn't have gotten it wrong), and the flashcards will let you practice that point until you know it.

* Do the same thing with any teach-yourself type language book you can find (libraries often have a good selection). Either skip the sections you already know, or use them as easy reviews - but whenever you get something wrong, turn it into a flashcard so you can keep practicing it until you know it well.

* Look for language exchange meet-ups in your area.

* Finally, push yourself to practice the things you're finding difficult. If reading is slow and painful, do it more often - even 10 minutes a day will pay off if you do it every day.
posted by kristi at 10:53 AM on July 11, 2017