Important Things Before Learning Arabic

So is Arabic a difficult language to learn? Well, you will certainly need somewhat more commitment and dedication to learn Arabic, than most European languages…the reason is twofold.

Firstly, you have to learn to read and write in a unique script which is completely dissimilar to our familiar Latin script.

Secondly, Arabic has many different forms and dialects…an occurrence known as multi glossia. To become successful in Arabic, you will need to become familiar with at least two of these dialects; Standard Modern Arabic, the language of formal usage, and one of the colloquial forms used in everyday settings in Arab speaking countries.

As an indication of the importance of Arabic, the U.S. and many other governments have stated that they consider Arabic a critical language. As a consequence, there are many scholarships available from Colleges and Universities, U.S. and Europe-wide.

Arabic belongs to the Semitic group of languages, the same group containing Amharic, Hebrew and Maltese. Arabic is one of the most widely used languages in the world and although no exact figures are available, some estimates put the number of native Arabic speakers at some 186 million. Because Standard Arabic is the official language of Islam, however, the actual number including second language speakers will be several million higher.

As mentioned previously, the version of Arabic used in formal situations, on television, in newspapers and for official government use is Standard Modern Arabic, it is a form of classical Arabic used in the Qur’an, but very importantly, it acts as a medium of understanding.

There are a great many colloquial forms of Arabic spread over the Arab speaking countries, but most of these are not widely understood from country to country, thus, an Arab speaking Yemeni would probably not understand an Arab speaking Tunisian except through the medium of Standard Arabic learned whilst learning the Qur’an.

Written Arabic, like Hebrew, uses a series of three letter vowels as a root to convey the general idea of a word, and a system of dialectic marks and interspaced consonants to specify the word and to produce variants; thus k t b would convey the idea of writing and dialectic marks would specify the word as kutub (book), but by adding certain letters before and after the root you could convey root variants such as office, library or author.

If all this sounds daunting, don’t fret. In my signature you’ll find a review of a great resource that will actually make learning Arabic tolerable. No, it’s not going to be a piece of cake, but it’s going to be easier than trying to go it alone with the “standard” tools you have available to you