The Challenges of Learning Arabic
There are several factors that can make Arabic a very challenging language to learn.
The goal of this post is not to dissuade you from learning Arabic, but rather to help you gain an understanding of some of the common differences between Arabic and other languages and how these differences can initially create stumbling blocks as you learn.
The challenges I’ve described below are things I’ve encountered with my students over many years of teaching.
My hope is that you find these tips helpful as you journey on to learning how to read, write and speak this incredible language.
Arabic Lettering
The Arabic script is beautiful and artistic yet difficult to learn at first, and requires much practice. It is written from right to left instead of from left to right. It is a cursive language which means that the letters in a given word are connected one to the next, except for the 6 ‘one-way connectors’ which always only connect on the right side. The cursiveness of Arabic results in the fact that each letter of the alphabet has 4 different manifestations, depending on whether it is standing alone, at the beginning of a word, in the middle of the word, or at the end of a word, while the 6 ‘one-way connectors’ have 3 different manifestations because their middle-of-the-word position is identical with their end-of-the-word position.
Consider the letter, ص [Saad] for example:
When it is standing alone: ص
When it comes at the beginning of a word, the shape changes to lose the tail or lower part: صـ
When it is in the middle of a word, the shape changes again because it connects both to the letter before it and to the letter after it: ـصـ
And when it comes at the end of a word, then the shape changes again, and the tail reappears: ـص
Vowels
Vowels are excluded from the regular alphabet of 28 letters -- they are considered to be ‘vowel markers’ and do not carry the same weight as regular consonants. Over the years, my students have called vowel markers, ‘accents’ because that is what they resemble. They are, however, fundamental to the pronunciation of words.
Phonetics & Pronunciation
The phonetics of Arabic is challenging and different from English and other Western languages. The majority of letters in the Arabic alphabet coincide with sounds that are present in English. However, there are eight letter sounds which are totally unknown in English. As a result, the correct and intelligible pronunciation of Arabic takes study and practice, in that these sounds are produced in different parts of the vocal track than are used in producing the sounds of English, namely the back of the mouth and upper throat -- but w-a-y back there where most people are not even aware can produce any intelligible sounds!
Grammatical Structure - Pluralization, Gendering & More
The grammatical structure of Arabic can be daunting.
I have discovered through years of teaching Arabic to American students that if one does not have a working knowledge of grammar concepts and configurations in one’s native language, then it is extra challenging to grasp and function with Arabic grammar. This is also due in part to Arabic being a member of the Afro-Asiatic language family. The large world language families are organized in part based on how each one treats the various aspects of grammar -- i.e. how it works, and how it is utilized in a given language.
An example of this is the plural vs. the singular: how does Arabic pluralize the names of things: people, inanimate objects, places, ideas -- when there is more than one? First of all, Arabic has 3 categories of Number:
The singular (one thing)
The dual (when there are two things)
The plural (when there are 3 or more things)
The answer is not at all similar to English -- for most words, English simply adds an -s- or -es- to form the plural, except when there is an irregular noun such as man and plural, men.
In Arabic, the plurals are first divided into 2 broad categories: human and non-human, and then further divided into sound masculine plural and sound feminine plural. Plus, there is gender in connection with all nouns -- the name of something is either masculine or feminine. For human beings, it is natural, and all inanimate objects are always either masculine or feminine, and this fact has to be learned when learning a noun. And besides the sound masculine and sound feminine plurals, there are the broken plurals which form the vast majority of plural formations. These are characterized by an internal change in the singular noun, whereas the sound plurals add one of two endings to the singular noun. So, for the vast majority of nouns, the plural form must be learned along with the singular when a word is first introduced.
Pluralization is but one example of the complexity of Arabic grammar. And then there is the reality that the many existent dialects have their own brand of grammar simplifications from the more complex grammar of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA); and yet it is still necessary for the educated person in order to communicate effectively in MSA.
Linguist and Arabic professor Maria Blanco, in her blog post, “Learning Arabic and the Challenge of Diglossia” identifies 5 different levels of speech in Arabic that help contribute to the level of difficulty in learning Arabic: Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, Educated Spoken Arabic, Semiliterate Spoken Arabic, and Illiterate Spoken Arabic.
Summary
With all of this being said, the student of Arabic does well to make a commitment to learning the language, persevere, and never give up in order to achieve the goal of acquiring a working proficiency in Arabic. It is definitely doable, yet it takes time, fortitude and dedication.
And then, at certain points along the way, Arabic begins to reward the student by unveiling itself and its magnificence -- it is extremely rich and regular, beautifully formed, and filled with harmonious patterns which are a delight to the inquiring mind.