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The Case for Arabic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Abu Sebastian Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3401 days ago 2 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical), Arabic (Gulf) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Levantine), Spanish | Message 1 of 22 14 August 2015 at 9:24am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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السلام عليكم
Greetings! It surprises me how few people manage to study Arabic to at least intermediate (B1-B2) levels, let alone advanced (C1-2). There are many reasons for this, but I would like to put a case forward with a few points on why I think serious language learners here should give it a go: 1 - From a pragmatic and socio-political point-of-view of view, it has huge coverage and dispersion. It is ranked 4th in the world for internet usage, and estimated to be 4th or 5th for native speakers. It is also one of the 6 official languages of the UN. Thus, it is unquestionably a major language. 2 - It has an immensely rich and intellectually satisfying literary tradition, which is sadly overlooked and under-appreciated. There are some fantastic classical reads such as Ibn Khaldun's al- Muqaddimah, Jahiz's al-Bukhala', Ibn Rushd's Tahafut al-Tahafut, al-Ghazali's Ihya', Ibn Hazm's Tawq al-Hamamah, Ibn Sina's al-Shifa', etc. There are literally thousands of books available in Classical Arabic covering a wide range of topics. 3 - It is the language of a presently-unstable and very diverse region of huge geo-political significance and so there are many news items easily available with which one can gain greater fluency. 4 - Although difficult (and it is), it is genuinely rewarding and beautiful - your understanding of history and culture will take huge strides forward. 5 - Massive kudos - only Chinese is as impressive to learn as a demonstration of one's intellectual prowess. 6 - Travel opportunities in vibrant places like Morocco, hustling urban centres like Cairo, financial centres like the Gulf, etc. although, sadly, when I tried to get by in Dubai on Arabic nobody understood me - I had to resort to English as Arabs are a distinct and aloof minority there! I hope these, and other, points are enough to convince you to give it a go and stick to seeing it through to at least intermediate level. Edited by Abu Sebastian on 14 August 2015 at 9:27am 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| akkadboy Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5406 days ago 264 posts - 497 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh | Message 2 of 22 14 August 2015 at 11:39am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Admittedly, I haven't checked the figures but this I find hard to believe unless you lump together all Arabic dialects, something which from the point of view the language learner doesn't really make sense.
Well, while I appreciated spending some time in Cairo, I would never dream of living there. And most of my female acquaintances who did travel/live for some time in any Arab country couldn't stand how men behaved there. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6059 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 3 of 22 14 August 2015 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I disagree. It doesn't make sense to the "fluent in 6 months" learner. But it does to the time-investing language learner.
Here, I couldn't agree more with akkadboy. Unfortunately, I must add. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Abu Sebastian Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3401 days ago 2 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical), Arabic (Gulf) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Levantine), Spanish | Message 4 of 22 14 August 2015 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Travel experiences are diverse. Most women I know who have travelled in Yemen, Morocco, Syria,
Oman, and the UAE and loved the experience. The trick is to be street wise, but that could be said about anywhere. Cairo has had harassment problems for years now, for both men and women. There's a knack to dealing with Egyptians that only comes after having lived and worked with them for some time. Growing up in a big city and having an urban attitude helps a lot. According to Munther Younes at Cornell, there is about an 80% concurrence between fus-ha and amiyyah, especially at the more abstract level. There is also a lot of concurrence between the dialects, especially Levantine, Iraqi, Egyptian, and Saudi. You could even add Sudanese to that. So I don't think diglossia is as big an issue as is often made out, unless you factor in North West African Arabic... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6059 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 5 of 22 14 August 2015 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I have a problem with the "Yemen" and "Syria" parts. Big time. I could discuss that, but I'm afraid it would take us into politics... fast. So I suggest we leave it at that and concentrate on the linguistics' side, shall we?
I agree. That's my experience too. Nevertheless, you must see why people take a different approach. That's why I steered away from the expression "serious language learners" and went with "time-investing language learners" instead. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5539 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 6 of 22 16 August 2015 at 1:03pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I agree that Arabic is a major language but MSA has no native speakers, it's only learned as a second language (Arabic being diglossic and such - which I think is pretty cool). Also there are only six official UN languages - that leaves a ton more that are also major (including German which is amusing because there's a UN office/campus - UNO City - in Vienna)
One could argue some if not all of this when talking about Latin America.
That could be argued for almost all languages.
I think there are plenty of languages that are just as impressive (aka hard) if not more so as learning Arabic. I also don't know why one would need to demonstrate their "intellectual prowess" to others unless they're in a situation where they are applying for a job or trying to get into university. Honestly while I would consider myself a "serious language learner" I have no real desire to learn Arabic. That doesn't mean I think ill of people who do learn it and I'm sure I've encouraged people to learn it before but there are a ton of reasons why I just don't want to learn it including that I really have no desire to travel to any of the countries in which Arabic is an official language. Potential travel tends to play a big role in my decision to learn a language and it's actually part of why I waffle with Japanese so much - the likelyhood of me going to Japan is very slim. As much as I would love to work for the UN as a translator, as an English translator I would also have to have a "excellent command" (their words) of two of the other UN languages and well. French I wouldn't mind, but I don't want to learn Arabic, Russian, Spanish, or Chinese to a level that would qualify as "excellent" (and then take tests to prove such). At the end of the day I don't think most people who like learning languages have ill feelings towards the learning learning most languages, really it's just a matter of preference. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 7 of 22 16 August 2015 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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This subject has recently been discussed in a great thread that included successful learners and natives among others. And I'd say the question and answers were more or less the same
-The problem with Arabic is not the language being difficult, so are many others. While learners like htlalers may take the linguistics aspects more into account, still majority of the world (at least when it comes to normal people) would however prefer less contact with the arabic world and people, not more of it. Yes, this is a bad point bordering politics (not to be discussed on this forum), but it is simply the number 1 problem with popularity of the language these days. You cannot complain of Arabic not being popular and wonder why, pretending this problem doesn't exist. It is not just about refugees, even many of the tourists, normal immigrants or exchange students can be a serious source of trouble. While I don't aprove of simple xenophobia, the people from the arabic countries are mostly just reaping what they have been sowing for a long time. They are not the only ones with bad reputations leading to harmful stereotypes, they are just the most extreme case. -Bad PR of the culture. Sure, there are many books that aren't coraan, there are many Egyptian tv series and tons of movies from the whole region, there is surely a lot of great music being made there. So, where is it? A normal european tv station or bookshop is gonna relate the customers much more to China, Korea or Peru than to the Arabic countries. Lack of an institution like the Cervantes or Goethe that would present arabic culture and language in an organised and exciting way, that is a huge con too and a sign the arabic countries do not see their cultural non religious export as a priority and never have. If you want good relations with other cultures, if you want many people to learn your language and create good ties to your country (which you can expand on economically), you'd better invest in them and make it all as easy and pleasant as possible. -Very limited travel opportunities these days, especially for women. I've been warned even by several lebanese not to travel to their country, despite its beauty. And Lebanon is still one of the calmer ones. It's not just about the terrorists, such as those attacking recently in Tunisia. It is hard to travel among such poor and desperate people, and being a girl is another problem. Why would I want to travel somewhere I cannot leave a hotel complex and just roam the city on my own without being afraid? -A huge motivational problem for most learners:it is not economically useful. And that is the single biggest reason why people learn languages, even htlalers take it into account to some extent. Sure, you could become a translator for the UN, for a non profit organisation that takes care of the refugees or for state paid institutions doing the same. But other than that, the options are extremely limited. Mandarin or Japanese opens you the doors to either working in the country (in arab countries, that is a popular choice only in a few fields and few places such as nursing in Dubai. And you can still live there knowing only English) or working for their companies abroad. Most people cannot imagine arabic being an important language of any field but oil. 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 22 16 August 2015 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
No matter how much women protect themselves, they always get blamed for not trying harder. Are there any initiatives that try to cope with the problem at least? 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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