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Learning a second language is never an easy thing to do. You have already formed the way you think about language and it becomes hard to learn a language that is completely different from the one you’re fluent in. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC), one of the finest foreign language institutions in the United States, indicated that one of the most difficult languages for English natives to learn is Arabic. This is not to discourage anyone, though! Learning Arabic can be difficult, but it’s not impossible and is definitely worth the effort.
According to DLIFLC’s infographic, it can take up to 88 weeks, about 575,600 hours, for an English native to achieve a reading and a speaking proficiency in Arabic. This is so due to the fact that Arabic is drastically different from English. From its right to left cursive to its vowels system, Arabic is the language that will take you down a different lane to discover a new culture.
Here are 5 things you will notice are different in Arabic compared to English
- Arabic doesn’t include vowels in writing
- In Arabic, every letter is written in three different forms based on its position
- Spoken Arabic sounds different from one dialect to another
- It has singular, plural and dual forms
- In Arabic, nouns differ if their feminine or masculine
This is just to name a few, so if you are an English native who can speak Spanish or French and believes that you are on top of the language learning game, then hold up! Because, unless you can roll out some Arabic, Chinese or Japanese, don’t even brag about knowing multiple languages!
Although Arabic is hard to learn, it sure has its upsides. For one thing learning Arabic will give you access to a rich, different culture, it will help you think differently after you’ve been accustomed to think in English and it will definitely expand your knowledge.
Leave a smile 🙂 ! and let us know if you’re learning Arabic or planning to do so in the comments section below.