The Arabic (MSA) Pronunciation Trainer Resources

Gabriel Wyner

August 25, 2017
1:25 pm

Pronunciation Training

Hi! If you’re seeing this, you’ve probably purchased my Arabic (MSA) Pronunciation Trainer (if not, you can get it at the store). I’m going to be using this page to keep track of changes, to provide instructions for repairing problems, and to have a central place to keep the instructional videos that you should watch before using your pronunciation trainer.

ESSENTIAL VIDEOS TO START LEARNING

Instructions for using your pronunciation trainer effectively:

Arabic (MSA) Video 1: Arabic Alphabet

Arabic (MSA) Video 2: Arabic Consonants

Arabic (MSA) Video 3: Arabic Vowels

Arabic (MSA) Video 4: Arabic’s Spelling Rules

Note: If you’d like more information on phonetics and the IPA, check out this series of videos. I’ve also create the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) Anki deck, which is available at the Fluent Forever shop.

HOW TO USE ANKI

How to use Anki for the first time

First, you’ll need to install Anki onto your computer if you haven’t already. The details of how to install Anki is provided in the ReadMe file you received with your Pronunciation Trainer. Once you have followed these instructions and installed Anki, you’re free to start studying using the pronunciation trainer deck.

If you have more questions about Anki and learning Arabic, there’s also the Anki language learners community on Reddit. You can even check out this Anki language learning blog for other Anki tips and tricks for learning Arabic.

If you’ve never dealt with Anki before, we’ve created Anki video tutorials to help guide you when using Anki for the first time. You will find tutorials about:

Getting Anki installed and making your first flashcards
Installing the Model Deck
Learning Simple Spellings and Sounds with the Model Deck
Learning Simple Words with the Model Deck
Creating Flashcards with images and sound files

Go to our How to use Anki page to access the tutorials.

Creating an AnkiWeb account

Create a free AnkiWeb account to regularly and automatically save your Anki data online by syncing your computer’s Anki account with an AnkiWeb account.

This is useful if you lose all your Anki files on your computer and want to download the latest version of your Anki decks and cards. Having an AnkiWeb account means you can also study your Anki deck and cards on several devices, such as your computer, smartphone and tablet, and you can easily move your decks and cards to different devices.

Learn how to create an AnkiWeb account for free here.

Getting Anki synchronized across your various devices (Laptops, smartphones, etc.)

I’m having trouble installing Anki or the deck, where can I get help?

If you are having difficulties installing Anki or the deck, please check out the Fluent Forever Help Center as your question may already be answered there.

If you can’t find the answer at the Fluent Forever Help Center, you can either post the problem on the forum or send us an email. Please include as much detail as possible and screenshots of the issue.

MODIFYING YOUR DECK

Optional spelling test version

This is an optional version of the deck that asks you to actually type in words to test your spelling, rather than just spelling out the words in your head.

I’ve included a pre-made version of this called the “Optional Spelling Test Version” in the pronunciation trainer download. If you would like to have this feature in your deck, please follow the instructions in your ReadMe file.

LANGUAGE LEARNING RESOURCES

Other useful resources specifically for learning Arabic (MSA)

We have a dedicated page of other Arabic (MSA) learning resources. These are books, websites and tools that I personally recommend using.

There is also a general language learning resources page on our website that provides a list of tools and resources that may also be useful for you.

There are also some useful Anki flashcards for Arabic to improve your pronunciation, such as the Arabic alphabet, IPA pronunciation and other useful goodies.

You can even access ready-made Arabic Anki decks to boost up your Arabic vocabulary which is recommended, as it could save you time and get you started faster.

Fluent Forever Help Center

The Fluent Forever help center provides you with advice and answers from the Fluent Forever Team about the most common questions users have. You can access articles about:

FLUENT FOREVER PRONUNCIATION TRAINER VS FLUENT FOREVER APP

Are the Fluent Forever Pronunciation Trainers the same as the Fluent Forever App?

Nope, they’re different!

The Fluent Forever Pronunciation Trainers are a set of videos and audio-visual flashcards. To use them, you watch some videos on YouTube, then you download a flashcard app called Anki, load our pronunciation trainer flashcards into Anki, and start studying. After 2-3 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation in the sound system of your target language, both in terms of ear training and in terms of the spelling system. After that, you can go create flashcards on your own within Anki, as described within the Fluent Forever book. We began creating these trainers in 2013, and finished in late 2017.

The Fluent Forever App is a much bigger project that we’re currently working on. Many of our users have had trouble learning how to use Anki, or have found that parts of the flashcard creation process were overly tedious. Instead of spending all of their time exploring their new language, they were getting stuck, spending their time struggling with flashcard creation.

In response, we decided to make our own mobile app that could automate the entire Fluent Forever method, so that a student could focus all of their time on exploring their target language, while the app created flashcards automatically, based upon that student’s choices. While the Fluent Forever App DOES teach pronunciation in the first few weeks, that’s only a small part of what it can do. It’s designed to take you all the way to fluency, teaching you vocabulary and grammar from 1,875 sentences we’re making, and letting every user of the app share their original content with every other user of the app. Within the next year or two, this will become the largest database of easily learnable sentences in the world. We began this project in late 2017, and we should have a final version ready by August of 2018. If you’d like to get early, discounted access, join our Indiegogo campaign: http://indiegogo.fluent-forever.com

NEXT STAGE OF THE FLUENT FOREVER METHOD

I’ve completed the pronunciation trainer, what do I do next?

If you have completed the pronunciation trainer deck you will no longer see any daily cards to review in Anki. If you’re still having problems with pronunciation, you could ask for help at the Reddit Forum for Anki
Language Learning or try Rhinospike.com for help. There are also other websites that have pre-made flashcard deck resources which are highly recommended, such as the alphabet flashcards, IPA pronunciation flashcards and other useful goodies. There’s also blogs about language learning tips with Anki in general which could help you.

The next step in becoming fluent in Arabic (MSA) is to learn a set of extremely common, simple words using pictures, not translations. There are 625 basics words that are commonly used. You can purchase the Wordlist for Arabic (MSA) at the shop and begin creating cards to study.

There’s also the option of using ready-made decks of Arabic vocabulary, or checking out a Arabic frequency dictionary.

You can read more about this stage of the Fluent Forever method in Chapter 4 of the Fluent Forever Book entitled “Word Play and the Symphony of a Word”. If you don’t already have the book, you can purchase the audiobook version at our shop or purchase a physical copy online.

UPDATES TO THE PRONUNCIATION TRAINER

Pronunciation trainer versions changes

The following are the various versions of the Pronunciation Trainer, listed from the newest to oldest, along with information on new features and improvements in each version.

Version 3.0

On June 8, 2018, the Fluent Forever Arabic (MSA) Pronunciation Trainer Version 3.0 was released to the public.

What’s New

General

Upgraded the version number to 3.0, as part of a major concurrent update for all Pronunciation Trainers in order:
- To phase out all Beta releases and move all Trainers into non-Beta
- To make all Trainers uniform by placing them within the 3.0 version series (even for Trainers without a Version 2.0)
- To make it easier for version control in the future
Updated the names of the folders, zip file and other files of the Pronunciation Trainer so that they are all standardized, easier to understand and follow the same conventions as all other Pronunciation Trainers in the 3.0 version series
Updated the URLs and titles of the Pronunciation Trainer Resources page so that they are all standardized, easier to understand, and follow the same conventions as all other Pronunciation Trainers in the 3.0 version series
Added a new hidden, suspended note in the Pronunciation Trainer Anki deck which includes basic information about the current version number of that particular deck. This will make it faster for users to get Fluent Forever tech support for their specific version
Improved the documentation and accessibility of version release notes and bug reports with updates

Word Stress Cards

Added new “Word Stress” cards for languages with word stress rules. Those languages included: Spanish LA, Spanish EU, Dutch, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese

What’s the Meaning of Words Cards

Deprecated: “What’s the word?” and “What’s the word mean?” card types
Modified the “Picture Words” card model so that it doesn’t force students to try and memorize words, but rather just spell them or pronounce them out loud.
Created distinct Trainer versions for “Old Users” and “New Users”. Old Users are those who have already installed and used the Trainer in the past, and would like to update their Trainer. New Users have never installed and used the Trainer before. Users must use their respective Trainer version so that the “Picture Words” cards display properly.

ReadMe File

Changed the filetype from HTML to PDF
Updated the design of the ReadMe file, such as the color scheme and formatting, to improve user experience
Improved the explanations of each of the ReadMe file steps to make them easier to understand
Included screenshots of the main steps to make the ReadMe file more user-friendly
Added a FAQ section with useful answers, such as suggestions for what to do after finishing the Trainer, and the difference between the Pronunciation Trainer and the Fluent Forever App
Removal of references in the ReadMe file to the Beta version of the Trainer
Included link to the Fluent Forever App as a faster alternative to the Trainer

Bug Fixes

No bug reports were submitted by customers for the previous version (“All versions prior to Version 3.0”). Therefore, no bug fixes were made for Version 3.0.

Responses to Previous Bug Reports

Other bug reports may have been given about the previous version of this Trainer, and all of them were checked and considered. To see a full list of the bug reports that were checked, including details of whether those bugs were fixed or not fixed for the latest version of the Trainer, please see this Trainer’s: Bug Reports for “All Versions Prior to Version 3.0

All versions prior to Version 3.0

Bug Fixes & Bug Reports

cards 15.3 “Minimal pair #1” and 15.7 “Minimal pair #2”: the recordings do not match the displayed words Got it!
card 10.7 “What’s the missing letter”: images of “Example Word (Letters in red)” and “Word with letter missing” are inconsistent with the other fields (missing jim instead of haa) Fixed
image palm_hand.jpg is identical to palm_hand_mnemonic.jpg, should be an image of just a palm Got it
image machine.jpg is identical to machine_mnemonic.jpg, should be an image of just a machine Got it.
Two of therecordings seem to be of lesser quality than the others:
~recording 2-Speaker-3-burj-tower-2.mp3: I can’t hear the initial “b”
sound correctly, which should be easy for me as a native French speaker,
so I suspect there is something wrong with the recording (maybe the way
it was cut or post-processed?) Got it.
~recording 44-Speaker3-shawq-A2.mp3: pronounced almost as if there was a fatha instead of a sukun on the final “q”, makes it easier to recognize. My understanding from explanations I’ve heard from my native speakers is that it’s part of the sound of final Q. That said, I chose a new one that has a bit of a shorter vowel-like sound at the end.
The picture at the bottom of “miim” for the initial, medial, final, and isolated character are actually the morphology for Qaaf. Got it
card 7.85: There would seem to be an error in the arabic spelling for this word. The /l/ sound has the diacritic for /æ/ over it, but it should clearly have the /i/ vowel diacritic under it (judging from both the sound file and the following ي. Got it!
for the minimal pairs, the settings are wrong for when it will next show you the card. it takes about 7 correct answers to move the card from 10 min review to 1 day review Should require 4 correct answers…not seeing any difference here between Arabic’s settings and other trainers..
Card 14.2 has an error on Word #2. It is missing the “nuun” letter. It is pronounced but not shown on the card. I’m seeing a nuun…can you send us a screenshot of what you’re seeing?
Card 8.6 in the Minimal Pairs cards is missing a letter for the word soup. The first letter “ح” is missing from “حساء”. Same issue – I’m seeing the Ha…can you send us a screenshot and some info about the OS you’re using?
Minimal pair card 15.3 the word are “seen” and “سين” but the audio and IPA are for “dean” and “دين”. Not sure which is correct Got it
There is a hiss behind the woman’s voice. This is typically caused by trying to do too much noise removal.
Cards 1.25 and 1.7 have the wrong letter forms, I used the ones from card 2.4. Got it
Card 6.55, the image for the example word is the same as the image for the Mnemonic Got it
Noticed the play buttons in the wrong order for some minimal pair cards. These seem correct. Can you send us a screenshot of what you’re seeing/hearing?
The card in the deck for m as in madrasa, shows the different forms of k on it Got it
I found a couple of cards that show the answer in the picture on the question card. In general, there is one image for the word and one for the letter. In these the same picture is used giving away the answer on the question card:
– 6.55 Emphatic Consonant: “Saad”
– 7.86 Emphatic Consonant: “Saad”
– 6.6 Basic Consonant: “faa'”
– 7.87 Basic Consonant: “fat'” Got it
The Seashell card has an issue. When it asks you to fill in the missing first letter, the Image it shows is the Answer image.
So you know straight away what the answer is. The image should be a real photo of a seashell. Got it
The card seems to be asking to guess ه but the ج is highlighted. 10.25 Basic Consonant: “haa'” Got it!
Noticed some layout issues in the iPhone for the following card:
رَأْس = Head
Front – Image overlaps the writing
Back – IPA text appears over the the Arabic. Also, lines are squashed at the bottom. Keeping in to-do list; we changed some fonts so this may be resolved
The volume level is good but a few of the words are louder than the others. It makes it pretty easy to guess the word. Got it!
For note 7.87 the pictures are the same. Two different files, same picture. Got it!
There is an error on card 10.7. The card asks for the letter ” ه ” but then shows the word ” وخه ” and has a blank space for the jiim/giim ” خ “. Got it!

Bug reports to be reviewed

Currently there are no bugs reported for Version 3.0.

If you encounter problems with your trainer: Please check that you are using the latest version of the Pronunciation Trainer before reporting any bugs.

If you encounter problems and are using the latest version: Either email it over or post it to the forum. Include screenshots if possible (if you need an image upload service, use Imgur.com), and be as detailed as you can! If the forum won’t cooperate or if you have something you’d prefer to send in private, send an email.

Please read through the bug report to check whether the bug has already been reported before sending an email or posting on the forum.

Get the latest version

Latest version of the Pronunciation Trainer: Version 3.0

If you have previously purchased the Pronunciation Trainer, you should have received an email regarding the release of the latest version and the direct link to download the latest version. If you did not receive the latest version, please send us an email.

If you do not have the Pronunciation Trainer, you can purchase it here: https://fluent-forever.com/product/fluent-forever-pronunciation-trainer/