Reading and writing Arabic العَرَبِيَّة



Today I read an article on italki titled "The 3 Hardest Languages To Learn (And Why You Should Learn Them)": https://www.italki.com/discussion/144616. This article is just ridiculous. It discussed Arabic, Chinese and Japanese and it was obvious that author hadn't learned any of the discussed languages because the article was full of errors. It states: "Written Japanese is fiendishly complicated, combining five different writing systems, kanji, hiragana, katakana, Arabic and Roman." I have no clue, where the author got this weird idea from. Japanese doesn't use the Arabic script all! One could argue that the Japanese use Arabic numerals, but calling that "Arabic writing system" is a bit over the top in my opinion, since the Arabic numerals actually originate from India and are just called "Arabic numerals" because they were introduced to Western countries by Arabs. In Arabic other numerals are used:  ١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩٠.

And the article says about Arabic: "Written Arabic doesn’t have any vowels. Y’r sppsd t fll thm n yrslf, whch s nt vry dffclt whn y knw a lngge (we can do it in English because the brain fills in the gaps) but much harder when you’re learning a new alphabet and vocabulary at the same time." This is not true. First of all, the letters aliph ا, wāw و and yā ي indicate long vowels and are always written. And secondly, in books for children and Arabic learners diacritics (the ḥarakāt) are used to indicate short vowels. My Arabic textbook uses ḥarakāt all the way through, so once you learned the letters and get used to the fact, that Arabic is written from right to left, it isn't that hard to read. Once you know the words, you don't need the ḥarakāt anymore to recognize the words. It is just a matter of reading practice.

But I have to admit, that of all the languages I learned or tried to learn, Arabic has been one of the most challenging for me. I can't really put my finger on the reason why. I'm also learning Persian, which also uses the Arabic script and even though my Persian textbook doesn't use ḥarakāt, I can read the texts just fine. Honestly, I think that Arabic is partly difficult to learn for Westerners because we believe that it must be hard. Maybe you would say that the words in Arabic are completely different to the ones in European languages. Are they really?

There are plenty of Arabic words in European languages: sugar, alcohol, lemon, magazine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabic_origin). And there are also plenty of words derived from European languages in Arabic.

I think the best is, to stop worrying about a language being too hard to learn. Depending on your mother tongue and your previous language learning experience and also your learning environment, some languages might be a bit harder to learn for you than others, but every language is learnable and if you don't always regard is as very hard, it also won't be too hard.

If you want to learn Arabic, do learn the Arabic letters. Any transcription systems can only be a crutch. And part of the beauty of the Arabic language lies in the Arabic calligraphy, so in order to fully enjoy it, you have to learn to read it.

What's next?

Currently, my Arabic is still on A1 level. I can read and write and express basic ideas. But I don't feel yet comfortable to have free conversations. Also, I still write Arabic the way it's printed and not the way it's handwritten. So, that's my to-do.list for Arabic:

  • learn Arabic handwriting, using this book: Mastering Arabic Script
  • regularly write short texts about various topics
  • get out of my comfort zone and start talking 

The Music

There are many Arabic bands on my playlist. Especially bands from Lebanon and Jordan. One of them is Mashrou' Leila.

Mashrou' Leila is a Lebanese indie rock band. Their singer Hamed Sinno is openly gay and in their lyrics, they touch on political and social issues. You can read more about the band here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/sep/13/mashrou-leila-lebanese-arab-politics.

Lil Watan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn3EFPOuEGM.
This is a very political song (don't be fooled by the video). Read here more about the background of the song, as well the lyrics in Arabic and English: http://blogs.transparent.com/arabic/sing-with-mashrou-leila-lil-watan/.

Fasateen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HqHdBlQEe8
Read more about the song and the lyrics here: http://blogs.transparent.com/arabic/meet-mashrou-leila/.

3 minutes (with English subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Tag1BwhqY

Icarus (with Arabic lyrics and English subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkIsEQx0OF8
In this lyrics video diacritics are added to the Arabic words.

Imm El Jacket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gyENyztDl8
In this song, the singer apologizes to a girl. He accidentally hit on her because he thought she was a guy. You can find the lyrics here: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/imm-el-jacket-%D8%A5%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%AA-girl-jacket.html.

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