Expert: Sirine Malas - 2/4/2011

Question
Hi, I'm 15 years old. I'm asking in this category ,because they don't have any Arabic study tips. I'm a Bahraini. I'm an honor student this year for the first time. I got 93.8 as my total. I need to get at least 95 to get a scholarship and at least 97 to get the crown prince scholarship. I really want to go to an English collage so I can work as a journalist in an English magazine. The only thing that's slowing me to get there is my arabic. I always get 60-75. I need to get higher to get that scholarship. Do you have any advise on how to improve my arabic?
p.s.I know how to speak arabic but I'm not good at school/tests.
p.p.s.I prefer english over arabic, that's why I'm no good in arabic.
p.p.p.s.I'm still in اول ثانوي

Answer
HI Hana,

OK so you need to raise your overall grade in order to get into the college you want is that right? And the only subject you are not doing well at is Arabic thus you need to improve it?

If this is correct.

Well, I think Hana you have two problems not one. If you are struggling so much with Arabic and you are Bahraini which means it is your native language , then you don't really like Arabic , am I right?

If this is true, this is something I cannot help you with and to do well in something like language which is something you don't just learn off by heart or practise to get good at, then it is even harder to improve without liking it. If you cannot like it all together find something in it that you like. Maybe poetry, certain expressions, phonetics.

You see I was like you , I studied  French and English at school but never Arabic properly My mom tought me Arabic basics at home and made a lot of efforts for me to get as much learning on the Arabic lanugage as I could.

But then because I liked creative writing so much , and most people around me spoke , read and understood Arabic much better than Englihs or French I had to improve my Arabic to be able to write proper arabic and get opinions and impress others.

So I went to my eldest brother who is the only one amongst my siblings that studied Arabic at school. And asked him how can I improve my Arabic . He had a whole room at his house made into a library... I'll tell you what he told me ...He walked me into the library room and said READ!
Yup Read ! Plenty and thoughfully ,,,

Read Arabic books that are valuable ... make the QURAN one of those it is your best reference for Arabic Language. Now whether you are relegious or not or even Muslim or not, to improve your Arabic you need to have a smooth relationship with the Quran because it is the best Arabic book ever written! I m talking about no mistakes in things like grammar in addition to نحو بلاغة وزن
So it is a great place to start.

Now grammar you can learn the rules off by heart but the rest you will need to work on by reading a lot and writing a little bit. Try yourself out in writing small essays or thoughts and giving them to someone (with good Arabic knowledge) to rate them for you or tell you their opinion.

Also read classic books like   مقدمة ابن خلدون - الأغاني -
books written by people like Al Ghazali , Ebn Hazm , Ebn Rushd etc...

Also read more modern books and novels written by people like , Ghada Al Samman, Naguib Mahfouz, Ehsan Abd Elquddous and many others ...

As you read underline words , terms or expressions you do not understand and look them up later.

And so on and so forth ... I know it is difficult and it takes some time but believe me this did wonders for me and really helped improve my Arabic. Even people around me started noticing this development.

If you need anything more ... I m happy to help

Cheers
Sirine