MIT: Independent Activities Period: IAP

IAP 2013 Activities by Sponsor - Chemistry



Your First 5000 words in Arabic

Betty Lou McClanahan, Administrative Assistant

Jan/09 Wed 12:00PM-01:00PM 56-191
Jan/11 Fri 12:00PM-01:00PM 56-191

Enrollment: Unlimited: Advance sign-up required
Attendance: Attendance at both sessions is preferred
Prereq: Rudimentary ability to read Arabic


Dr. Moshe Brill, in his classic study, The Basic Word List of the Arabic Daily Newspaper (1940), was the first to make the claim that a vocabulary of the most frequent words in Arabic, numbering even as few as 1,000, would allow the reader to make sense of perhaps 80% or more of written Arabic (newspapers, for example.)  He additionally claimed that this fact should motivate a re-thinking of Arabic language pedagogy.  Buckwalter and Parkinson's A Frequency Dictionary of Arabic (2011) is the contemporary work in this field, comprising 5,000 words, and we will use it as our text for this class.  Purchase is not required.  If there is interest, we will also discuss key internet sources for building speaking ability and listening comprehension.  Additional sessions will be scheduled if there is interest.

Sponsor(s): Chemistry
Contact: Betty Lou McClanahan, 18-598, 253-0630, blm@mit.edu