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Arabic: Why is it hard? | ||
Tags: Difficulty | Arabic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Silvance Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5484 days ago 57 posts - 81 votes  Speaks: English*, Pashto Studies: Dari | Message 1 of 9 21 July 2014 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm considering giving Arabic a shot, and I know it's in the hardest category based on
the FSI listing. I'm curious why this is? What about the language makes it so difficult for English learners? If I know the alphabet already from learning Pashto, does that alleviate much of the difficulty in learning it, or is it something more? Note I only plan on learning MSA for now. Once I can read a normal newspaper in Arabic, I'd want to choose a dialect and focus on that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4705 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 2 of 9 21 July 2014 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my experience, the alphabet is actually the easiest part.
If you want to learn MSA, then the "difficulties" you'll face are probably the mostly alien vocabulary, the plural formation, the genders (but that's not that hard), and especially the grammar and declensions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4022 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 3 of 9 21 July 2014 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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The language is complicated and a good challenge, but not murderously grueling like the ones closer to your native
tongue. The plural formation is often not predictable and the word order is different to add. Verbs have an extreme amount of forms yet they are quite systematic, Arabic is very complex and unpredictable in some areas yet regular in many ways. The script isn't as automatic to me as other ones I've learned. The distance may be the biggest problem as that is one of the main ones I'm having. Edited by Stolan on 21 July 2014 at 7:54pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6051 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 4 of 9 21 July 2014 at 11:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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It depends on how good you are at grasping new concepts: for instance, how long did it take you to understand the concept of neuter in German? Five minutes? One month? Still doesn't really fit in your head?
Joking images apart, Arabic will test that part of your brain, since many things are different from what you are accustomed to with Indo-European languages (yes, Pashto too). You have just three verb tenses, but many types of verbs, along with conjugations for masculine and feminine; and there's dual, too. You also have different kinds of verb moods, as well as other unexpected grammatical rules (like plurals). All in all, I'd say it's a good experience, since it gives you a different way of looking at the world. But be prepared to be challenged. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Przemek Hexaglot Senior Member Poland multigato.blogspot.c Joined 6465 days ago 107 posts - 174 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, SpanishC2, Italian, Portuguese, French Studies: Turkish, Hindi, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 9 05 August 2014 at 10:42am | IP Logged | ||
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For me the most difficult part is reading - not the alphabet in itself but the fact that
short vowels are not written. I'm not always sure if I read the text correctly. That's why when I learn vocab, I learn it without Haraka (these sings above/under letters). The second difficulty is the fact that you have to learn plurals along with singulars, because even if there are patterns, there are so many of them, that you can never be sure what the plural of a given noun is, if you hand't learned it earlier. Saying this, in my opinion, conjugations, genders and declensions are not difficult. But my native language, Polish, has them all, so perhaps it's that I'm just used to using them all the time... 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mikael84 Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Peru Joined 5290 days ago 76 posts - 116 votes Speaks: French*, Finnish*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Russian | Message 6 of 9 11 August 2014 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Vocabulary and getting your ear/mouth/eyes accustomed to oral/written speech. The rest (grammar) I find no more difficult and actually easier than in most languages.
Also I don't know if you're planning to just learn MSA, but maybe the major difficulty for anyone trying to learn "Arabic" as a whole is the difference between MSA and dialects, and between dialects... Making it sometimes feel like you have to learn 1,5 or 2 languages instead of one! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4042 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 9 12 August 2014 at 1:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Silvance,
This site offers a response to your question: Differences in the Difficulty of Learning a Language. It also regroups the world's majority languages by the FSI rating for native English speakers. Bonne fin de journée! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5090 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 8 of 9 13 August 2014 at 1:32am | IP Logged | ||
I wish I could find something like that for Francophones. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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