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French, German, Arabic - grammar! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| WH2010 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5173 days ago 13 posts - 52 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 11 23 December 2010 at 3:00am | IP Logged |
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Classical Arabic is a synthetic language. It marks most nouns and verbs for case and
mood, respectively, typically by adding a final vowel or omitting a final consonant. Modern Arabic dialects lack this system entirely. So, when Arabs are first introduced to Classical Arabic as schoolchildren, this case/mood system shocks them and many of them, unfortunately, never recover from this initial shock. They just throw up their hands and decide that the system is impossible to learn and just chalk it up to the wonder and mystery of their ancient language, before bragging to others about how fantastically difficult their language is, as our friend above has done. In fact, I think most Arabs think that Arabic is the only language that marks words for case and mood, and I'm sure most don't realize that many languages employ similar systems even today and using even more complex versions of this very system! So, yes, in terms of syntax at least, there is nothing terribly complicated about Modern Standard Arabic or even its ancestor, Classical Arabic. I actually find it rather straightforward. However, the aspect of Arabic grammar that may cause some problems for learners is the morphology. Arabic morphology uses a neat root-pattern system that is, to my knowledge, basically unknown outside of Semitic languages. Native Arabic-speakers obviously apply it intuitively (the system is basically the same in modern dialects as in Modern Standard Arabic), but a learner will just have to learn the patterns by rote memorization. I don't know how this system compares to other morphological systems, however, in terms of difficulty. I do actually believe there may be a lot of truth to Andrew's notion that dialects have more difficult grammar than MSA. Edited by WH2010 on 23 December 2010 at 3:04am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5386 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 10 of 11 26 December 2010 at 7:43am | IP Logged |
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Never studied German, but I can definitely say that Arabic is way harder than French.
Then again to be fair I studied Spanish first, so French grammar doesn't scare me. My intuition says that while German might be more complex in some ways, I can't imagine it would be *harder* than Arabic. What I find difficult about Arabic isn't the conjugation/case system, it's really the sheer foreign-ness of how people put thoughts together. Flipping through a random page on German Wikipedia, I don't know a whole lot of words, but can more or less intuit what words are doing what. Prepositions vs. nouns vs. modifiers, that sort of thing. English being a Germanic language, the programming seems familiar, even though I know the depth of difference is enormous. But with Arabic I find myself struggling to even figure out which way is up. A phrase like "and for my children. . ." can be expressed in one "word" of sorts: "waliawlaadi." It's not really just one word, but can be written as if it were, and even if you're competent in the Arabic script it takes a while before you can tease out what is doing what. Nevermind that you need to know that the plural of "walad" (child) is "awlaad," because Arabic plurals can be a pain (though to be fair I hear German can as well). So compare "waliawlaadi" with "Et pour mes enfants. . ." and "Und für meine Kinder. . ." At a glance you can see how the mechanics of the other two are working, even though you don't understand the details. Whereas "waliawlaadi" is far more foreign and offers you no clues at first glance. On the page it takes me a few seconds to break it down ["wa-li-awlaad-i" (and-for-children-mine)]: in a fast conversation it might blow right by me before I even know what's going on, nevermind trying to put the phrase together quickly in my head. So yeah, I agree that people make too much out of Arabic grammar. I know I did at first. But the grammar itself isn't the whole problem, it's mostly just the alien nature of how Arabs put thoughts together compared to my personal programming. While I'm sure that German has its share of tricks and traps, I feel that I would (having never studied it a day in my life) still feel more comfortable feeling the language out with confidence that I knew what was going on. Edited by robsolete on 26 December 2010 at 7:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5698 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 11 of 11 26 December 2010 at 9:44am | IP Logged |
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Good thing that you explained "waliawlaadi" in "wa li awlaad-i", because now I can see the construction -I'm
also a learner/beginner- "and for 'my children' ". Even your article is helping me to learn. شكرً 1 person has voted this message useful |
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