Learning the Arabic language is an achievement and like any other great achievement in life, it doesn’t come easy. You need to invest prolong time, keep yourself motivated, have patience and make serious effort to get a grip on the language. Unfortunately, most learners take the difficult route, which make their learning experience more difficult than what it actually is.
Here’re some tried and tested tips on how to start learning the Arabic in more effective and easier way.
Choose and focus on a single version of the language
There exist lots of Arabic’s or different versions of the language. Before your start, decide the part of the Arab world that you’re interested in. Then, focus on the version of the language spoken in that geographical area. Gradually, when you master that version, you can gradually move on to other versions of the language spoken elsewhere. But, as a beginner it always pays off to keep your focus limited to a single version of Arabic.
So before anyone learns Arabic they need to decide what part of the Arab world they’re interested in and make a decision to stick with that particular variety of Arabic at least for the time being. It’s important to note here that you’ve to learn the MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) to follow the Arabic newspapers and the electronic media. But that can wait till you’ve gained sufficient mastery over the particular version of the language that you’ve chosen.
Why it’s not a good idea to attempt learning the MSA first
If your goal is to speak Arabic, then you should better forget about MSA and focus on any particular dialect that people actually use to communicate verbally. The MSA is not spoken by a single soul on earth and it’s not a native tongue. If you master the MSA, you’ll never understand anyone, who speaks Arabic. Moreover, it is also more difficult to learn this version, as it is grammatically more complicated.
A useful strategy
The Arabic script is abjad, which means it’s basically made up of consonants and has no vowels. Thus, the “computer” when written in Arabic will appear like “kmbywtr”. The problem for the foreign learners of the language is they’ve never encountered this before. Thus, they get no clue to pronounce the word till they’ve heard it. However, this problem gradually subsides, as you advance in your course. Thus, learners avoid getting themselves familiar with the alphabets and emphasises on transliteration study materials. But this is a wrong approach.
Arabic language teachers in London, who provide arabic language lessons online say, though it’ll be confusing and difficult at first, yet you should start learning the Arabic script right from the beginning instead of the transliteration materials. With good-quality study materials with audio support or a native speaker to listen to, you can easily get over the initial difficulties and progress rapidly in a short time.
