Arabic is one of the most spoken languages in the world and is gaining popularity every year. The study of the Arabic language has its own characteristics, which is associated with the structure of the language itself, as well as with pronunciation and writing. This should be taken into account when choosing a program for training.
Prevalence
Arabic belongs to the Semitic group. In terms of the number of native speakers for whom it is native, Arabic ranks second in the world after Chinese.
Arabic is spoken by about 350 million people in 23 countries where the language is considered official. These countries include Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Palestine and many others. Also, the language is one of the official in Israel. Given this factor, the study of Arabic involves the preliminary choice of the dialect that will be used in a particular country, since, despite many similar elements, the language has its own distinctive features in different countries.
Dialects
Modern Arabic can be divided into 5 large groups of dialects, which from a linguistic point of view can almost be called different languages. The fact is that the lexical and grammatical differences in languages are so great that people who speak different dialects and do not know the literary language can hardly understand each other. The following groups of dialects are distinguished:
- Maghrebi.
- Egyptian-Sudanese.
- Syro-Mesopotamian.
- Arabian.
- Central Asian.
A separate niche is occupied by modern standard Arabic, which, however, is practically not used in colloquial speech.
Study Features
Learning Arabic from scratch is not an easy task, because after Chinese, it is considered one of the most difficult in the world. It takes much longer to master Arabic than to learn any European language. This applies to both independent work and classes with teachers.
Self-learning Arabic is a difficult path, which is better to refuse at first. This is due to several factors. Firstly, writing is very complex, which does not look like either Latin or Cyrillic, which is written from right to left, and also does not provide for the use of vowels. Secondly, the very structure of the language, in particular the morphology, is complex.and grammar.
What to look for before starting to study?
A program for learning Arabic should be built taking into account the following factors:
- Having enough time. Learning a language takes several times longer than learning other languages.
- Opportunities for both self-study and group or private tutoring. Learning Arabic in Moscow gives you the opportunity to combine different options.
- Inclusion in the learning process of different aspects: writing, reading, listening and, of course, speaking.
We must not forget that you need to decide on the choice of a particular dialect. Learning Arabic is different depending on this factor. In particular, the dialects in Egypt and Iraq are so different that their speakers cannot always understand each other. The way out of the situation may be to study the Arabic literary language, which has a more complex structure, but is understandable in all countries of the Arab world, since dialects traditionally have a more simplified form. Despite this, this option has its negative sides. Although the literary language is understood by all countries, it is practically not spoken. It may happen that a person who speaks a literary language will not be able to understand people who speak a certain dialect. In this case, the choice depends on the purpose of the study. If there is a desire to use the language in different countries, then the choice must be made to the sideliterary version. If the language is being studied for work in a particular Arab country, but preference should be given to the corresponding dialect.
Vocabulary
Studying the Arabic language is impossible without the use of words and phrases, which in this case have characteristic differences in comparison with European languages. This is due to the fact that in Europe the languages intertwined and strongly influenced each other, due to which they have many common lexical units. Almost all vocabulary of the Arabic language has its original origin, which practically cannot be connected with others. The number of borrowings from other languages is present, but it occupies no more than one percent of the dictionary.
The difficulty of learning also lies in the fact that the Arabic language is characterized by the presence of synonyms, homonyms and polysemantic words, which can seriously confuse people who begin to learn the language. In Arabic, both newer words and very old ones are intertwined, which, at the same time, do not have definite connections between themselves, however, they denote almost identical objects and phenomena.
Phonetics and pronunciation
Literary Arabic and its numerous dialects are characterized by the presence of a very developed phonetic system, in particular, this applies to consonants: guttural, interdental and emphatic. The complexity of the study is also represented by all sorts of combinatorial possibilities of pronunciation.
Many Arab countries are tryingbring the spoken pronunciation of words closer to the literary language. This is connected primarily with the religious context, in particular with the correct reading of the Koran. Despite this, at the moment there is no single point of view on how to read certain endings correctly, since ancient texts do not have vowels - signs for denoting vowel sounds, which does not allow one to correctly state how exactly one or another word should be pronounced.
Arabic is one of the most widely spoken and also one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world. The difficulty lies in a special writing without the presence of vowels, multi-level morphology and grammar, as well as a special pronunciation. An important factor in learning a language is also the choice of dialect, since the Arabic language sounds very different in different countries.
