Question for Arabic speakers

[Elponitnatsnoc]

Hi, I want to learn Arabic in college (I'm currently a senior in high school) for a career in international relations/government.

I wanted to know the difficulty of the language; I've heard it's quite hard. I know Spanish and Italian with some degree of fluency (Spanish more than Italian) but I get really hung up on some things. I'm really bad at figuring out when to use certain tenses.. for example when to use the subjunctive vs. indicative in Spanish or preterite vs. imperfect. Otherwise, I have a very good memory and I learn the basics quickly on everything I do.

So, I wanted to know if any Arabic speaker (or someone else who is learning it) if Arabic has many of these ambiguous tenses. Also, how have your experiences with it been? What makes the language unique and how is it different than other languages? I was also thinking about learning Russian... can anyone provide details about Russian language? Which is easier to learn/more useful for a career in IR?

Thanks

 

[Cato the Elder]

I haven't tried Arabic yet, but apparently it's extremely hard to speak, and hard to read as well, though doable if they add the vowels onto the words.

Russian I have tried to, on my own, but I never even got past chapter 1, so I can't tell you that much. From the little I've learned though, is that the proper pronounciation is quite difficult, and that apparently the grammar is quite intricate. Either way, not an easy language. Learning the alphabet is a good first step though, makes it a lot easier.

 

[Gelion]

What kind of carrer are you looking for?

 

[TheLastOne36]

I was also thinking about learning Russian... can anyone provide details about Russian language? Which is easier to learn/more useful for a career in IR?

Thanks

I can tell you one thing, as a pole, Russian is hard.

In school i was taught russian, and i don't remember anything of it. (just some words and phrases) It was really hard. To me, i think if you learn one slavic language (ie Polish) then you can understand Slovenian, Croatian, Slovakian, and to some extent Serbian and Czech and some other languages i forgotten.

After learning some other Slavic Language, you'll find Eastern Slavic Languages easier.

i made a little post sometime ago about Polish and how easy it is to pronounce words for english speakers. I'll find it.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6537221&postcount189

I think you should learn 1 Western or Southern Slavic Language then after that Russian. And since Poland has the biggest non-Eastern Slavic speaking population and is also the biggest i think it makes sense to learn Polish if any Western/Southern Slavic Language.

 

[Red Door]

Hi, I want to learn Arabic in college (I'm currently a senior in high school) for a career in international relations/government.

I wanted to know the difficulty of the language; I've heard it's quite hard. I know Spanish and Italian with some degree of fluency (Spanish more than Italian) but I get really hung up on some things. I'm really bad at figuring out when to use certain tenses.. for example when to use the subjunctive vs. indicative in Spanish or preterite vs. imperfect. Otherwise, I have a very good memory and I learn the basics quickly on everything I do.

No offense, but that's basic Spanish grammar.

And Russian's hard, and worthless outside of Russia.

 

[Gelion]

And Russian's hard, and worthless outside of Russia.

Absolutely!
Discard centuries old literature, UN documentation and CIS (and 100's of other things) and Red Door might well be right

 

[GenMarshall]

I know the US military is drooling for people who can read, write, understand, and speak Arabic.

In the Civilian world, learning any language is essential for international business or interacting with local immigrants in the US, including Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese, etc.

 

[mitsho]

Learning Arabic at the moment, I must say the following:
-Regarding your question on the tenses, it is difficult to say, as your example really seems to be basic spanish grammar. Generally, the rules for which tense to take in Arabic seem quite straightforward and not too complex, but there are quite a few I admit (but I can't really tell perfectly, because I haven't been learning the language for long).
-Regarding verbs and tenses, the Arabic difficulty lies more with the sheer number of forms the verbs can take. There are 14 persons (singular, plural, dual, female and male forms) x 6 tenses/modes etc. x 10 "tribes" of verbs (every term can take up to 10 different forms that have the same basic structure, for exampel -ifta as a prefix; and there are actually more than 10 tribes...). So I let you count how many forms a simple verb like "write" can take, and I'm sure I've missed some...

-Generally, you need to be clear yourself that Arabic is no Indo-European language. It is much harder for you to learn it than for example French. You will use the "normal" Latin grammatical terms but they don't really fit well. But this difficulty stays with other languages, for example Russian...

-In my experience, it is really a question of work and willingness. If you have learned for example Latin, you know what I mean. But that depends partly on wether your school focuses on grammar and (old) texts (as most universities Oriental departments normally do, because students of Islamic Science normally have to do with source texts of that type) or on oral performance...

Amny more questions?

 

[hossam]

Hi, I want to learn Arabic in college (I'm currently a senior in high school) for a career in international relations/government.

I wanted to know the difficulty of the language; I've heard it's quite hard. I know Spanish and Italian with some degree of fluency (Spanish more than Italian) but I get really hung up on some things. I'm really bad at figuring out when to use certain tenses.. for example when to use the subjunctive vs. indicative in Spanish or preterite vs. imperfect. Otherwise, I have a very good memory and I learn the basics quickly on everything I do.

So, I wanted to know if any Arabic speaker (or someone else who is learning it) if Arabic has many of these ambiguous tenses. Also, how have your experiences with it been? What makes the language unique and how is it different than other languages? I was also thinking about learning Russian... can anyone provide details about Russian language? Which is easier to learn/more useful for a career in IR?

Thanks

i know arabic and it is a pretty hard langauge, some of the things you might find hard about it is that it has a completely different alphabet, there is a feminin and masculin form for everything, the word are hard to pronounce correctly.

 

[GenMarshall]

Generally, you need to be clear yourself that Arabic is no Indo-European language.

Much like Japanese.

Amny more questions?

Is there any kind of Romanization of Arabic?

 

[Red Door]

Absolutely!
Discard centuries old literature, UN documentation and CIS (and 100's of other things) and Red Door might well be right

Mostly translated to English. Mostly translated to English. And worthless. I might as well be righ.t

 

[mitsho]

Much like Japanese.

Well yes, did he say anything on learning Japanese?

Is there any kind of Romanization of Arabic?

Naturally there are the many loanwords like tilivisiun or garage or whatever... But that doesn't really count as romanization does it? Then there are the numbers, as our numbers are called "arabic", they still use other numbers (exception is the Maghreb afaik), but they write the numbers from left to right (and the rest is of course from right to left...).
Could you be a bit more precise on what Romanization actually is?

m

 

[GenMarshall]

Could you be a bit more precise on what Romanization actually is?

Translitteration of Arabic writing into Latin Letters.

More info on what "Romanization" is

 

[mitsho]

Translitteration of Arabic writing into Latin Letters.

More info on what "Romanization" is

Of course, the most prominent is the one dictated in Rome sometimes in the thirties. It orientates itself after the sound of the words. The problem that there are some letters that we in Latin would show as the same (h, s, t for example) are solved with points above or below. Lastly there are glottal sounds (like the letter ain) that get shown with ' rather than an actual latin letter. The problem with that "decree of Rome" is of course that the Latinized Arabic strongly depends on who does write it down. Because an English speaker would read it differently than a French or a Finnish one. But it still works...

If you go a bit down on that wikipedia site you find a (little bit confusing) enumeration.

m

 

[Elponitnatsnoc]

What kind of carrer are you looking for?

I don't really know. Some sort of government job dealing with international affairs.

I think you should learn 1 Western or Southern Slavic Language then after that Russian. And since Poland has the biggest non-Eastern Slavic speaking population and is also the biggest i think it makes sense to learn Polish if any Western/Southern Slavic Language

The problem is that the university I am going to does not offer any other Slavic languages to my knowledge. And I already am competent in Spanish and Italian.

Learning Arabic at the moment, I must say the following:
-Regarding your question on the tenses, it is difficult to say, as your example really seems to be basic spanish grammar. Generally, the rules for which tense to take in Arabic seem quite straightforward and not too complex, but there are quite a few I admit (but I can't really tell perfectly, because I haven't been learning the language for long).
-Regarding verbs and tenses, the Arabic difficulty lies more with the sheer number of forms the verbs can take. There are 14 persons (singular, plural, dual, female and male forms) x 6 tenses/modes etc. x 10 "tribes" of verbs (every term can take up to 10 different forms that have the same basic structure, for exampel -ifta as a prefix; and there are actually more than 10 tribes...). So I let you count how many forms a simple verb like "write" can take, and I'm sure I've missed some...

-Generally, you need to be clear yourself that Arabic is no Indo-European language. It is much harder for you to learn it than for example French. You will use the "normal" Latin grammatical terms but they don't really fit well. But this difficulty stays with other languages, for example Russian...

-In my experience, it is really a question of work and willingness. If you have learned for example Latin, you know what I mean. But that depends partly on wether your school focuses on grammar and (old) texts (as most universities Oriental departments normally do, because students of Islamic Science normally have to do with source texts of that type) or on oral performance...

That's really helpful, thanks. The problems I have is more when to use the different tenses rather than actually memorizing them. Is it that they are difficult because they are so numerous or because it's vague as to when you use them?

Generally, you need to be clear yourself that Arabic is no Indo-European language.

Well aware of that having had some experience with Hebrew!

Thanks to everyone for their responses!

 

[mangxema]

i made a little post sometime ago about Polish and how easy it is to pronounce words for english speakers. I'll find it.

You are the only person I've every met (well.. whatever) who has claimed that Polish is easy.

I know the US military is drooling for people who can read, write, understand, and speak Arabic.

In the Civilian world, learning any language is essential for international business or interacting with local immigrants in the US, including Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese, etc.

Elpo, if you're going to learn a niche language (from an American perspective) make sure you want to go where that language is spoken. If you're working for a company and they need someone to go to the Middle East, and you speak Arabic... you're gonna be their guy. That said, if it's somewhere you do want to go, or at least don't mind, you can make a ton of money.

 

[Elponitnatsnoc]

Elpo, if you're going to learn a niche language (from an American perspective) make sure you want to go where that language is spoken. If you're working for a company and they need someone to go to the Middle East, and you speak Arabic... you're gonna be their guy. That said, if it's somewhere you do want to go, or at least don't mind, you can make a ton of money.

Of course! I love traveling abroad. Though it may end up a little awkward given that I'm Jewish... Is this a problem?

 

[mitsho]

Hrmpf, just deleted my whole long post....

Of course! I love traveling abroad. Though it may end up a little awkward given that I'm Jewish... Is this a problem?

I don't think it should be a problem, as it is mostly a stereotype of the arab world (don't know really though) and you maybe first American, then Jewish. But of course, that might not always be positive...

On to the question, the use of the tenses is quite straightforward, as there are not many of them (Past Perfect [with 2 special forms] and Imperfect/"Present", each with active, passive). Most tenses get formed with an adverb + tense, so it is doable, but I can't really comment further as I am just starting on this topic...

Main difficulties are
-the scripture (a. learn it; b. unfortunately, the Arabs do not write the vocals (vowels?) and signs [a,u,i,doubling] down unless you read the quran, so you...)
-the vocabulary (...need to learn every single word first with vocals but then be able to read it without, meaning memorizing it; additionally, many words look the same or very very similar which is confusing (at least to me).
-the buildup (with prefixes, suffixes, interfixes, etc. ...)
-those grammatical terms not existing in LAtin languages (elative instead of superlative/comparative for example...)
-the speech (Arab has many vowels we are very hard pressed to pronounce correctly if spoken totally correct, but that is just the icing... )

Well, I could go on... (one last: remember that there is some variation between MAghreb, Egypt, Syria and whatever else....!)

Finally, I'd say it is not that difficult a language if you really want it and work for it. Remembering my time in school, I found French harder to do in a way...

 

[gangleri2001]

-Hi! I'm American and I'm a jew, and I speak arabic too.

Mmmm... Sincerelly, I'd think that you're an spy sent by Israel and the USA.

 

[TheLastOne36]

You are the only person I've every met (well.. whatever) who has claimed that Polish is easy.

I said it was Easy to Pronounce. Not to learn. No language is easy to learn. But it certeinly is easier then English.

I remember i was giving english lessons to some of my friends from school for extra cash. Pretty Hard.