Al-Irelandi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5534 days ago 111 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 33 of 53 14 October 2009 at 7:29pm | IP Logged |
Hello all,
I personally disagree with all the negative comments on here branding Arabic as a difficult language. I am an anglophone yet I found Arabic far easier to study then French in comparison.
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Saif Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5611 days ago 122 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Levantine)*, French
| Message 34 of 53 14 October 2009 at 7:38pm | IP Logged |
Minlawc wrote:
Here's a question, a bit off topic. Is Arabic easier for Spanish speakers? |
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There are over 4000 loanwords in Spanish derived from Arabic words. However, it is much easier recognizing these words learning from Arabic to Spanish rather than from Spanish to Arabic (since Arabic is the source). Furthermore, the adopted words were pronounced using romance phonology with no relation to the Arabic pronunciation of the original words. So I wouldn't say Arabic is easier for Spanish speakers. It will be as difficult to learn (unfortunately or fortunately :D).
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Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5676 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish
| Message 35 of 53 14 October 2009 at 9:11pm | IP Logged |
Woodpecker wrote:
Paskwc wrote:
Fazla wrote:
I definitely do not get why people
make such a big fuzz about Arabic
alphabet. It was seriously the easiest aspect of Arabic. It's like cursive. |
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To this day, I can't produce the Arabic script by hand. While I am literate, I
can't reproduce the script in a legible manner. |
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That's a strange problem. Do you have any idea why, or is it just a sort of mental
block? |
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I see two possible reasons.
First, I have trouble with any form of cursive writing whether it be in Arabic,
Devanagari, or Latin script. I like my letters to be crisp and segregated.
Alternatively, I only began writing in Urdu (or in the Arabic script) when I was around
14. Consequently, connecting the constituent letters of a word with one another is much
less intuitive than my background might suggest.
Edited by Paskwc on 15 October 2009 at 4:52am
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liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6228 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)
| Message 36 of 53 27 October 2009 at 4:01pm | IP Logged |
This is a link to a great article written by Karen Ryding at the Georgetown department of Arabic on the difficulties of Arabic for English speakers.
http://www1.georgetown.edu/departments/arabic/about/issues/
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JasonBourne Groupie United States Joined 5751 days ago 65 posts - 111 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Arabic (Written), Turkish
| Message 37 of 53 28 October 2009 at 9:21am | IP Logged |
al-Irlandee wrote:
Hello all,
I am an anglophone yet I found Arabic far easier to study then French in comparison. |
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I hope this is a joke...
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ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 7096 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical)
| Message 38 of 53 30 October 2009 at 10:28am | IP Logged |
JasonBourne wrote:
al-Irlandee wrote:
Hello all,
I am an anglophone yet I found Arabic far easier to study then French in comparison. |
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I hope this is a joke... |
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Yeah, I really don't see how that can be true.
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Al-Irelandi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5534 days ago 111 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 39 of 53 02 November 2009 at 8:15pm | IP Logged |
JasonBourne wrote:
al-Irlandee wrote:
Hello all,
I am an anglophone yet I found Arabic far easier to study then French in comparison. |
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I hope this is a joke... |
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No amigo, it's the truth. For me, personally there was a few factors that I could bring to substantiate my claim. 1)I had a lot of enthusiasm as a new Muslim (back then) to learn the language of the Qur'aan. 2)Arabic has a 99% phonetic language where French doesn't so this was an obvious advantage, 3)it took me like a week and a half to learn the Arabic script الحمد لله, so that didn't pose a problem.
Yet, with French, I studied it for 5 years in school and found it hard and lacked interest in it. Likewise I struggled with its writing conventions.
Having a genuine interest in something can go a long way in helping one succeed in getting ahead in that specific subject.
Edited by al-Irlandee on 02 November 2009 at 10:46pm
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patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7014 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map
| Message 40 of 53 03 November 2009 at 12:37am | IP Logged |
al-Irlandee wrote:
Having a genuine interest in something can go a long way in helping one succeed in getting ahead in that specific subject. |
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Indeed it can. It's amazing what can be accomplished by the power of motivation.
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