Any tips for learning Arabic?

My great new discovery, Babylon has language training software as well as translation software. The translation software is great for reading Arabic newspapers etc.
You are welcome in advance

@anartist, awesome. Thank you.

I would think you should practice writing each letter (and its concomitent vowel sound) over and over, like we used to do when we were learning cursive.

I see that things are complicated by the placement; initial, median, final, independent. (There seem to be 116 letters to commit to memory.)

Slow and steady, daily, like you picked up English as a baby.

@gailcalled, excellent advice. Thank you.

You could try LiveMocha Someone on here pointed me towards it a little while ago, and I’m finding it great help learning Norwegian.

@Unexpected_Rain, cool, I’ll check it out.

There are some good, inexpensive programs in Yemen that make travel for a short term affordable. Intense 5–6 week programs can be less than $1000.

Try to meet people who speak the language and converse with them.

@PandoraBoxx, that may not be possible because of school at the moment, but thanks for the suggestion.

@ItsAHabit, been working on that. It’s hard to find Arabic speakers in my state though.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard, the suggestion from @gailcalled is exactly what I did to learn the Sanksrit alphabet (Devanagari). I wrote each of the characters hundreds and hundreds of times, alone and in combination. I carried a small printed copy of the Devanagari characters and a notebook with me so I could practice whenever I was stuck waiting somewhere. I also practiced transcribing passages from books.

I used a narrow-tip calligraphy pen so my writing would look like the text I was copying; that might do for Arabic also.

@Jeruba, excellent tips. I’m not focusing on the script until I get a basic vocabulary, but I’m going to use your tip by writing the vocabulary words themselves over and over again. Thanks.

I’d also suggest memorizing some poems, verses, and songs.

For me, learning and memory are so visual that I would not want the words separated from the script in my mind. They’d have to be fused from the beginning. If you’re more of an aural learner, that might not be such a risk for you.

@Jeruba, I’m mostly a visual learner, but I think there may be some merit to the poem idea. That helped me learn German. There’s no reason it won’t work for Arabic.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard A tip for learning any language is to get the sound in your ears as well as the characters in your sight. Finding a community (online, maybe?) and talk with them, and listen to them should be good.

@Andreas, great, thank you.