Fun with Arabic

Arabic grammar, I've discovered, is exactly like Hebrew grammar.

Except that it's about 100 times harder.

Ten verb conjugations. Indicative, subjunctive, and optative moods. Noun cases. Irregular plurals. Letters that aren't pronounced, and sounds that aren't written.

Oh, and that's the easy part. Then there are the oddball rules, like: half a dozen different ways to form negative expressions; negative past tense expressed with the present tense; inanimate plurals take the feminine singular. And so on.

But it is fun - Arabic is a rich, complex, and beautiful language. I've been hitting the books and audio recordings really hard in the last two weeks or so, and I can see myself making progress. The Living Language series is very good - I'm using both their Complete Arabic and their Ultimate Arabic programs. The Ultimate Arabic set is brand-new, and extremely thorough: a complete introduction to MSA (written and spoken), plus three modules devoted to the major dialects. I recommend it to anyone seriously interested in learning Arabic.

I'm going to pick up Persian again too, in a couple of days - maybe in time for 18 Tir, which is this Saturday.

Wish me luck!

Random images.

Coffee cups and wine glasses. The house where I grew up. A fire alarm.

That's all I can remember. When I was downtown at the gym this morning, though, an alarm went off in the building and they had to evacuate everybody.

LJers in the flesh!

I've just made my second in-person LJ meeting (after fairiegodmother, and I do hope we'll be able to chat again some time!) - with daddicade at the Horsebrass. Cade, it was great meeting with you & the boi!

Families ... {sigh} ... who invented them, anyway?

And Cade, I promise not to say a word about your criminal past ... really!

The Complete Works

For those of you just joining us, my sister's poetry is viewable online here:
Wilderness Vision

My previous fiction is here:
The Rose of Paradise
The Zero Ring
The Death Wish

And the current project:
The Queen's Courtesan
The Gilkesh Chronicles - Background notes on the Gilkesh civilization.