قط

دجاجة chicken

سمكة

الطاووس peacock

بجعة pelican

حرباء

More in the comments.

And this is something similar.

  • CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    8·
    16 days ago

    Arabic is beautiful, but I can’t make heads or tails of where one glyph ends and another begins. I do know it’s read right to left, but that doesn’t help me.

    I’ve heard Japanese is the most foreign/alien language to English, but I think Arabic is more so. I can sound out Anglicised Japanese (romaji) but Arabic confuses me (Anglicised I mean). Not quite as much as Gaelic and Welsh… Anyway let’s just say some languages are harder than others!

    • Prof_mu3allim [comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      10·
      16 days ago

      I get why the Arabic script looks difficult and hard to decipher, but that is just because it’s written in cursive. There are only 28 letters, but to write in cursive we need to connect the letters in a word together, so the letters have to change their shape slightly in order for us to connect them. There are rules for all of this and it’s all very consistent and straightforward, check my post history for lessons on the Arabic script.

      Once you learn the 28 letters and their sounds you’ll never have a need for transliterated/Anglicized Arabic because in Arabic you read what you write, each letter has only one sound and you should never need any help sounding out a word. And there are only 4 sounds in Arabic that are foreign to an English speaker.

      Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Arabic is the easiest language, but the script and sounds are no way as difficult as people perceive them to be.

      • CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        4·
        16 days ago

        That does sound easier than I thought it was. Japanese basically has two alphabets. Hirigana and katakana, one is for foreign words and the other is for Japanese words, they’re the sounds of vowels, and then they have the kanji which are way more complex symbols for words. I don’t know any kanji, and I only know a couple hirigana (or katakana, I’m not sure). The Japanese words I know are in romaji. Still technically Japanese but not all Japanese native speakers would be able to read them. They sound the same, of course. If I say “konnichiwa,” they know I’m saying “hello/good day” but their mind sees the symbols. Mine sees the romaji letters.

        All I can say in Arabic is “allahu ackbar” (God is good/great/the greatest) and “as-salam alakyum” (peace be upon you), and I’m sure I butchered the spelling! AND they’re specifically Muslim phrases, and of course I know not every Arabic speaker is Muslim and not every Muslim is Arabic. I just happen to know a couple Islamic phrases in Arabic (thanks to a TV show).