20:17
[speaking Arabic] Today I have a special guest. I have been trying to learn Arabic for a long time, uh, going back five, six years, dabbled in Fusha, Egyptian, Arabic, Levantine Arabic, but recently I've been working on Levantine Arabic with my tutor. So Hasan, I would like you to introduce yourself. And what's interesting about Hasan is that he is very much, uh, an adherent of the principle of learning through comprehensible input. And maybe you can tell us a little bit about your experience with comprehensible input and the motivation behind you setting up your own website for teaching Arabic through comprehensible input.
Hi Steve. Thanks for having me. Uh, my name is Hasan Alhamwi. I'm a native speaker from, a native Arabic speaker from Syria. Uh, I learned English, uh, when I was an adult, uh, the hard way. And, uh, many years later I moved to Montreal to in to Quebec, uh, in Canada. And, uh, uh, recalling the trauma of language learning, traditional language learning, i, uh, resisted learning French, something I feel, uh, uh, very, uh, sad about, uh, so I'm not a natural by any means.
Uh, for many years I found I thought about language learning as something very, very difficult. Yeah. Something that should be avoided at all costs unless you really need it. Uh, however that idea changed, uh, after a few trips to Mexico, I was, I got so interested in, in learning Spanish, uh, so I decide, decided to, you know, like, search and see if the, the been something new and the like a, a way to connect with the people that, that was my motive. And, uh, and yeah, I came across comprehensible input, uh, by accident and the idea of comprehensible input.
Uh, for me the word is, is mouthful is, uh, jargon, but the idea is very simple, is that we humans, uh, acquire language, uh, when we, uh, get exposed to, uh, meaningful messages. When we hear a language in context, messages that are understandable through context, through visuals, through and gestures. If there's someone who acts out of what they're saying, uh, then all we need is enough exposure and time. Uh, with, with the language to, uh, to gain, uh, lasting fluency. So then how did you, what was then the motivation again to start up, uh, a website to use comprehensible input with Arabic?
And with Arabic, of course, I speak from personal experience, it's difficult. You've got a difficult writing system, you've got different varieties of Arabic in different parts of the world. What was your thought process? How did you go about setting up your own website, teaching Arabic via comprehensive input? Uh, so while learning Spanish, I could not help, but look, does this thing exist in, in Arabic? Does this exist in any, uh, other languages? And, uh, the answer was not really.
Uh, there are few YouTubers, few channels that uh, do few videos on comprehensible input. But again, to, to learn through comprehensible input, you need a lot of exposure. And, uh, and that didn't exist on the internet, so I. the idea is just as I was progressing in Spanish, the idea kept coming back to me that I must do this. So I'm a civil engineer by profession. I, uh, a few months ago I stopped working and I dedicated my life to, uh, building Arabic all the time. Which is now already, we are at the largest platform for, uh, the largest library of comprehensible input videos on the internet for Arabic in modern standard and Levantine Arabic. And, and yeah, just because it was lacking, and I've always
thought, I love Arabic and I love sharing it with the world. I, I thought if it didn't exist, I wanna, I wanna build this. [speaking Arabic] Do you make the same videos in both standard Arabic and Levantine Arabic, or do you make different videos for each version of Arabic, or how do you deal with that? I think about, uh, the dialect versus a standard Arabic issue as, uh, like more topic specific than, uh, than you have to pick one and, and stick with it for, for all topics.
Most Arabs, we, we like to communicate abstract topics in, uh, modern standard. Mm. That's how, uh, books are written. That's how, uh, the news, uh, channels, uh, broadcast. Mm-hmm. Uh, the, all the documentaries for history for sciences. Mm-hmm. Uh, literature, politics, modern standard Arabic is the way to go. However, for day-to-day life, uh, for, uh, for washing the dishes and for, uh, for, uh, brushing your teeth, no one speaks, no one uses, uh, modern standard Arabic.
Right. So, uh, until now, we've been, uh, for the day-today topic, we, we present them in Levantine, in Shami. Mm-hmm. And, uh, for the more abstract topics we do for intermediate and advanced, mm-hmm, uh, we, uh, we make our videos in, um, in, uh, in modern standard. Uh, to answer your question, that Arabic is difficult and, uh, making comprehensible input for a difficult language, this was something that I learned the hard way. Mm-hmm. When we started, I thought, you know, similar to Spanish, you can have a talking head, you add some icons that explain, uh, the idea and that would make it comprehensible. But I learned the hard way that. That didn't work.
It's much easier to make Spanish comprehensible, uh, when you're, when you're, uh, doing content in Spanish, uh, at least for English speakers. Mm-hmm. Uh, because there is a big overlap., Mm-hmm. Uh, however, that's not the case with Arabic. Uh, Arabic is much, uh, uh, disin from English. Mm-hmm. So it takes, it, it just takes more effort to, from the presenter side of things to, uh, to, you know, make themselves more comprehensible.
Like you need to be more expressive. Mm-hmm. [speaks Arabic] One technique that I found very useful is, is when I isolate items. Mm. Like if I say, uh oh, this is a mug, and then I say, oh, there's a cup of water and. mm-hmm. So I isolate one item and I repeat it in different context, different, uh, like scenarios, different setup. It becomes very, very clear what I'm talking about. Mm-hmm. And even if you don't know a single word in Arabic, you can still, uh, get the message. And for me, that's, that's what matters.
Initially, nothing is comprehensible when you started from beginning. Mm-hmm. Nothing is comprehensible. You're not gonna be able to tell where a word starts and a word ends. Mm-hmm. And that's normal. But if you get the message, if you get the message being communicated, if you understand the meaning behind the video, then you just need more time. You just need more time, and the pattern starts clicking. Okay. Now from my perspective as a learner. Mm-hmm. Okay. So first of all, I totally agree with you that initially you have to overcome the strangeness of a new language.
Mm-hmm. And uh, and I can understand where using a lot of gestures or pictures or isolating and a lot of audio and even when I started into learning Chinese, we relied on audio and pin yin, which is the phonetic script for the initial period until we got into Chinese characters with Arabic. And of course, I like to be able to read so. It's a major obstacle. Mm-hmm. So if you can avoid having to read, if you're a learner of Arabic and you're gonna only ever speak and you can get to a level of fluency without ever reading in a way that's easier, my own experiences that I find it easier to remember things that I can also read.
Mm-hmm. So, and of course, as you yourself said, once you get into more serious topics, uh, it's not a hundred percent fusha or standard Arabic, but it's more, it's mostly standard Arabic with some local, uh mm-hmm, you know, dialect mixed in. Mm-hmm. Uh, so at that point, do you not have to introduce writing? You, you do. I believe that reading is, uh, like, is an excellent way to get more input, but I am an advocate for delaying reading, uh, to a later stage. Uh, just Oh, interesting. Just for the reason that initially, uh there is no reading material that's gonna be comprehensible to you.
Uh, you need to acquire a certain, a number of vocabulary, uh, a number of nouns, words, uh, before any reading material will be comprehensible enough. So just like children learn, uh, languages, I think we can replicate the same experience as adults. Mm-hmm. Uh, that was my experience with Spanish. I know that, you know, Spanish is much easier because they use the Latin alphabet and Arabic is very distinct, but I think the same general principle applies that if you delay reading to a later stage after you've acquired some Arabic. Then tackling reading will be easier. It's still challenging.
Indeed, Arabic is, mm-hmm. Uh, has a very unique writing system. Very artistic, but very intimidating for learners. Yes. Uh, and I understand that. And, uh, I think, you know, uh, again, it's time and motivation as you always say, and in all your videos. Uh, yeah. Right. So I have a question then. So, because I think the whole subject of Arabic is probably quite intimidating for many people mm-hmm who have no experience with Arabic. But if you are from Syria or Lebanon and you go to Iraq, or you go to Egypt,
or you go to Abu Dhabi and you speak your local dialect, I mean, would you, first of all, would you speak your local dialect and be understood? Mm-hmm. Or would you and the person in wherever you go, Baghdad, speak to you in fusha or in their local dialect? How does all, how does that communication work? Mm-hmm. It's very similar to if you have someone from, uh, like south of the United States going to Scotland and mm-hmm.
They, they go, well, they like if they speak in their own like pure dialect accents, they won't be very comprehensible to each other. So if I were to go to Iraq, I would standardize my Shami, my Levantine, my, my Syrian dialect. And it is the expectation that most, you know, the, the other person will also standardize. We're not gonna speak fusha. We're gonna speak still the dialect with our accents in, in fact, for us, Arabs, the word dialect, uh, doesn't have a translation, doesn't have, this concept is foreign to us.
We refer to, we say lahjah, which translates more to an accent. Uh, it's, it's not a dialect for us, it's more, uh, like an accent. Although I understand that the differences are, uh, there is differences in vocabulary. So we, we standardize a bit our the speech, uh, to, to make ourselves, you know, understandable, comprehensible to each other. Uh, but we would not be speaking pure Fusha. Uh, that's, that's very rare unless you are, uh, TV presenters. Uh, no one on the ground and on the streets of Baghdad or Cairo or Damascus would speak Fusha to you.
My own experience. I mean, we can talk about whether Danish and Swedish is one language or two, you know, Portuguese and Spanish are similar. Mm-hmm. Uh, but my own experience with Arabic has been that I am very glad, despite the fact that it's taken me longer, not only was I dabbling in standard Arabic, Egyptian, Levantine, but also doing Persian and Turkish at the same time, which is not ideal. Mm-hmm. Not ideal, however. I have a sense of Arabic that is one language. Mm-hmm. And if, if I find an interview on YouTube, it can come at me in a hundred percent, uh, standard Arabic, 50% standard Arabic, you have no control over what form of
Arabic mm-hmm is gonna come at you. Mm-hmm. And therefore, the idea that I have, that it's really one. And if the person speaks a little more like Egyptian Arabic or a little more like Syrian Arabic or more standard Arabic, I can understand it. Mm-hmm. And what I speak is also a bit of a mixture because my brain is completely confused now between the different forms of Arabic. But I, I'm glad that I have, that. I'm glad that I'm able to deal with, again, comprehension to, to my mind is the most important thing. Comprehensible input. If I have a broader range of potential comprehensible language because I've
have had an exposure to Fusha and to different, uh, you know, regional variants, to me that's a good way. 'cause the whole thing with Arabic is, it's a phenomenal tradition, phenomenal history. And, and so you wanna be able to access all aspects of that culture. So my, my vote, unless if I were moving to Lebanon or Syria and I had to focus on one in order to be able to function every day, I would focus in on that one. But I'm glad that I have a, had some exposure to, to standard Arabic as well. Mm-hmm. I, I cannot agree more. I, I truly believe that Arabic is, is one language.
Uh, again, as a child, I learned, I acquired, uh, Shami from, um, my parents, from my surroundings. Mm-hmm. Uh, mm-hmm. Then as I grew up, I acquired Fusha, uh, through exposure, through watching the news, watching TV shows. Uh, mm-hmm. And, uh, and grow a bit more, and, uh, watched, uh, Egyptian, uh, movies and, uh mm, and, and, yeah. Uh, and then I acquired Moroccan, uh, Iraqi through friendships. Uh, so mm-hmm. I do believe it's just, you know, a matter of if, if you wanna be able to communicate with everyone. So the thing is, if you speak, everyone will understand you.
They won't speak fusha back to you. So the, the, the key is understanding the other, uh, person. And to achieve that, you just need a bit of, uh, exposure to that specific variety of, of Arabic. Uh. More or less, most Arabs understand each other with the exception of, uh, the Maghreb: Morocco, Algeria. Mm-hmm. Where they, it, it, there is, uh, you know, a big barrier. If you are not familiar with the, with the Maghrebi dialect, it's very hard for someone from the Levant or from Iraq to understand the Maghrebi. They would understand us. They, they understand the Shami perfectly thanks to the Syrian TV shows and drama, uh, right.
But we, uh, Syrians in general, they, they have a hard time understanding, uh, people from, from the west of the Arab world, uh, Morocco and Algeria, uh, more specifically. Right. So now, uh, I therefore recommend that people who are interested in Arabic should go to Arabic all the time. And, uh, also connect with Hasan, who's an excellent tutor, uh, tutor of the language and he introduces you to so many aspects of the culture. And we'll finish off here, uh, where I will attempt to speak arabic, which is not one of my strongest language.
Okay. I think that's good enough.
