asmaaa

Assalaamu alaikum,

I would guess that Georgetown's arabic program is a lot like Harvard's, meaning it almost definitely uses the "Al Kitaab fi Ta'allum al 'Arabiya" series by Brustad et al (I think one of the co-authors is a georgetown arabic prof). Also, the degree is probably not in "Arabic" per se but in a department like near eastern languages and civilizations (NELC). So for the B.A., you'd have to take a number of years in arabic, plus courses in politics/religion/anthropology/archaeology etc focused on the near east.

This method of learning arabic is REALLY flawed in my opinion. I started my undergrad at harvard in the NELC department learning arabic, and a few years later went to the toronto Shariah Program for a 6-month arabic learning intensive. There is NO comparison.

here's the difference: in the Al Kitaab method that most universities follow, the approach to language learning is very random. Each unit/lesson starts with a word list that you learn, then you see those words in some sentences, then you learn some grammar rules that were in those sentences. The vocab is not what a student of deen really needs (there's little religious vocab), and it's not what someone who wants to communicate with arabs really needs (because it's not colloquial). So to be honest, I see it as being totally useless unless one's interest is just to read the news or listen to political speeches in arabic.

Contrast that with the traditional, time-tested way that developed of teaching arabic to non-arabs as islam spread to non-arab countries. This is what the Shariah Program in toronto uses and I TOTALLY WHOLE-HEARTEDLY (not shouting, just gushing) recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to read arabic in general (for any purpose whether news/religious books/etc) as well as anyone who primarily wants to learn arabic for future religious studies. It is a totally cohesive, top-down method of teaching arabic. The early classes are just about explaining the language, eg: " 'Lafz (لفظ( refers to every sound that comes out of the human mouth. Sound can be meaningful or non-meaningful. If it is meaningful, it can be a single meaning (one word) or a compound meaning. If it is one word, it is either an ism(~noun), a fi3l(~verb), or a harf(~preposition). If it is a verb, it is either maadi (past tense), mudari3 (present), amr (command), or nahy (negation). etc.etc." - creating a tree diagram so every possible word type in arabic is broken down and you understand exactly how the language fits together.

Because of that, in one day of class I learned more than I learned in an entire _year_ of harvard al kitaab-style arabic. It put everything into perspective alhamdolillah. The focus is on grammar and conjugations, not on vocab. Anyone can learn vocab on his own with a dictionary and flashcards. What you need in a class is someone to explain to you how the language WORKS. You need someone to force you to read from an unvowelled book, so you learn to infer the vowels as you read and then have to translate later. You need someone to drill you in verb tables so it becomes second nature for you to conjugate a verb and recognize what conjugation a verb is in when you read it in the Qur'aan or any other arabic book. You CANNOT read without this information. In only a few days of the Shariah program, people were starting to read arabic fluently (understanding was yet to come for people with no prior arabic exposure, but they had already learned what each part of the sentence was, like: this is a past tense verb/this is a noun/ this is a command to a man/ this is an adjective referring to the feminine noun). That does _not_ happen in university arabic until well after the first full year. Once you get that foundational knowledge, you are totally set to learn vocab (which you can do easily on your own, or just read w/ a dictionary) and begin understanding what you read.

If you want more info on the Shariah Program, just google it (Mufti Yusuf is an amazing web optimizer besides being the best teacher I've ever had :P maa shaa Allah, so you'll find the site whether you want to or not lol). I took the summer online class before moving to toronto for the 6-month program and they were both incredibly valuable. (the online class gave me about a 3-week headstart for the class, so I wasn't drowning like the other students alhamdolillah. it's very intense). You could also google "Fundamentals of Classical Arabic" by Husain Abdul Sattar because it includes most of the early verb charts that you learn in the Shariah Program classes (and it's used in the classes).

Side note: I just want to mention that both of these brothers are non-arab, and their teaching method is probably most predominant in madrassas in pakistan. At first I had learned from arabs because I thought they would have an advantage in terms of greater fluency or familiarity with the language. But after having many different teachers, my personal experience is that a non-arab teacher who learned fusHa can often help you more than an arab can, at least in the earlier stages of learning arabic. Because non-arabs have gone through the arabic learning process from beginning to end, usually in adolescence or adulthood so they remember all of the steps of learning, I think they can explain the basics better. (arabs usually start learning fusHa before they know it's happening, in early elementary school, so they're not as clear on how to learn from the beginning). After non-arabs have helped you "learn how to learn" arabic at the basic-intermediate levels, there are other advantages to having a native arabic speaker at more advanced levels. Now I hope no one has taken offense at any of this, I'm half arab and my husband is fully arab and I love pakistanis and all other muslims. just to cover all the bases

may Allah reward Mufti Yusuf for his teaching, which totally changed my life and opened my world.
والحمد لله رب العالمين

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They have made the Qur'aan, Sunnah, and Fiqh their guide to every good and beautiful quality.