jokes aside
I would like to propose a little project between LingQ and the Arab students and friends of Robert “lovelanguages” B., to improve the Arabic library and maybe have a win win win situation for all.
My preliminary dabbling has me concluding that overall the beginner content we have on here is hardly usable, and definitely not enough by itself to really get launched to intermediate purgatory. Of course Arabic is in Beta so it’s not like there is any fault, but this important language should really be nudged to supported status.
The audio quality of most all the beginner material is very bad and the speech is fast and mumbled. Together with a lack of Romanization, it is an unnecessary uphill battle to decipher and remember what the invisible vowels are and what the whole word is actually supposed to sound like.
There is no “Eating Out” or “Greetings and Goodbyes” and “Who Is She?” stops short of part 6. All the other beginner material is just too skimpy and the available intermediate content is just too dense to close the gap.
If it was just for myself and if I was in a hurry, I would just buy a beginner book at some point. Luckily I’m not in a hurry and between Robert’s students, other Arabic-lingqers including insha’allah future Steve, I got the idea of including and thereby helping more people.
So similarly to how Steve hired Romanians for content production, and maybe as a lingqesque version of this project https://natakallam.com/ we can connect interested students of Robert’s and Arabic-lingqers, either on lingq or another platform that enables payment, for example elance. I am definitely willing to chip in, if we can find just a few more learners to chip in, as well the lingQ business account. I think from lingQs point of view the eventual return on investment is easily there. Another factor could be winning some of them as lingQ members in turn.
Some suggestions of what I think we could use:
Eating Out
Who Is She (complete!)
A comprehensive collection of basic patterns
An ArabiclingQ podcast, maybe even with Robert as the interviewer (like Steve was in some languages)
Diaries about life in the home country or as a refugee
All of this in good audio quality and clear MSA
If Robert will be able to mobilize some students, maybe Mark Kaufmann and Robert could look into how the payment platform or other rewards could work. There is no hurry. Any time after Robert’s return from Jordan would be great.
Meanwhile, all you LingQers who are interested in having an improved Arabic beginner library, please report on this thread en masse to assuage the ROI concerns of those evil, icy, calculating lingQapitalists Steve and Mark over there in Vancouver! ;PPP