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What makes Arabic difficult? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5810 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 9 of 53 11 October 2009 at 9:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Karakorum did an excellent job answering this question in an old thread I saved, so I'm just going to quote him.
And to add my own two cents, my experience as an Arabic learner has so far born out just about everything he said. Diglossia does make figuring out what to study more difficult, but in reality the dialects and fusha are closely related enough that they build on each other. The abjad really isn't that hard once you know it, and you can learn it in a few days. The really hard parts of the sound system are definitely the "Ayn, Qaf, and Haa," and all of them can be at least approximated well after a few weeks of practice. Far and away, the most difficult and terrifying part of Arabic is MSA grammar. It is truly awesome in its complexity. Edit: I should have attributed the quote directly. Edited by Woodpecker on 11 October 2009 at 9:34am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Muz9 Diglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 5523 days ago 84 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Somali | Message 10 of 53 11 October 2009 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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First of all, thank you for the valuable information.
I already know the Arabic script, as a young child I use to attend a Madrassa were they taught us it. We were taught how to read the Quran, but we couldn't understand it (happens quite often all around the Muslim world). The 'Alien' sounds like the 3yn are not that difficult for me as I am already familiar with them through one of my native languages (Somali). About the grammar, Arabic has genders? Should I imagine something like how the mainland European languages give asexual objects (nouns) genders? Or is it more like English that it only refers to people and living creatures. Hope for the latter one! Edited by Muz9 on 12 October 2009 at 1:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5810 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 11 of 53 11 October 2009 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Everything in Arabic has a gender, but I would say it's more like the easy gender of Spanish than the arbitrary, difficult gender of, for example, German. Most feminine words in Arabic are clearly feminine because they end with the taa' marbuta, a rather odd letter that is pronounced as an 'a' or an 'ah' when on its own, but pronounced as a 't' when used with the pronoun "tags" or in an 'idaafa. There are exceptions to this rule, but they're quite easy to learn. The three major exceptions I can think of off the top of my head are:
1. All words for female people are feminine, even if they don't have the taa' marbuta. Ex. بِنْت - bint - daughter or girl. 2. Almost all countries are feminine. Ex. مِصْر - miSr - Egypt 3. Most body parts that come in pairs are feminine. Ex. رجل - rajl - leg or legs Thankfully, there is absolutely no neuter. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5903 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 12 of 53 11 October 2009 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm kinda curious, most of the posts I read speak from the perspective of someone
learning Arabic as a IE native speaker... what about native speakers of other language families? Any discounts? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5676 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 13 of 53 11 October 2009 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
To name a few: 1) Common script 2) Familiar phonemes 3) Somewhat close grammatical structure 4) Related vocabulary If I were to quantify this 'discount', I'd say that Arabic is 40% easier for speakers of Persian and about 25% easier for speakers of Urdu. That said, speakers of Hebrew and Turkish might also enjoy discounts, but I can't say to what extent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5568 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 14 of 53 12 October 2009 at 3:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
As a learner of Hebrew who wants to eventually study Arabic as well, I always wondered why Arabic was rated as a more difficult language than Hebrew by FSI. Perhaps the reason is because Modern Hebrew is standardized and pronunciation is pretty straightforward? Also I imagine that Hebrew has adopted more English loanwords than Arabic. Any speakers or students of Arabic and Hebrew know why Arabic is considered to be more difficult than Hebrew? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Saif Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5611 days ago 122 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Levantine)*, French | Message 15 of 53 12 October 2009 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Modern Hebrew has easier grammar and pronunciation than Arabic. It also borrows many words from Russian, German, Polish, English, and Arabic so it's a more familiar language compared to Arabic. It's like a hybrid Semitic-European language (which isn't unusual given the Jewish European immigration to Israel). In that respect, an interesting language to learn, but only useful in Israel. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5568 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 16 of 53 12 October 2009 at 4:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Interesting. I was wondering if Hebrew grammar was easier; I guess it is. Sorry if I hijacked the thread a little bit. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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