Arabic is a language vastly different from English, and this can make learning it quite challenging. By understanding these differences, though, and compensating for them a student can quickly and easily see fantastic improvements.

Reading and Writing Arabic
Arabic has a completely different alphabet from English (though there are quite a few similarities from ancient times - there was some cultural exchange somewhere along the way). You've probably seen examples of this text online, in the news, or in the books you're using to study.

Another tricky bit is that Arabic is written right to left (as opposed to the familiar left to right). Getting your brain around this the first few times can be a challenge, but a surmountable one.

Grammar
Grammar may not be your favorite thing to learn, but it's basically the framework of a language. It's the rule on how everything fits together. And Arabic has some extreme differences from English in this area (even more than other languages).

In English, our sentences follow the SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT pattern, and our brains have become wired to see this as "logical." Many other languages, both related and unrelated to English, have the same structure. Arabic, however, follows a VERB + SUBJECT + OBJECT structure, which is almost certain to cause confusion.

And to make it doubly confusing, an Arabic sentence does NOT need a verb (while in English that is the single most important part of the sentence).

Gender and Number
Many words in Arabic will be modified by both the gender and number of objects being spoken about. The idea of plurals changing form in well known in English: usually we just add an -s. We do not, however, modify words based on gender. This will take more getting used to, and it results in a lot more memorization.

Pronunciation
Arabic has a number of sounds that don't occur in English. A lot of these are the glottal sounds that English speakers often mock for sounding like throat clearing. These are real sounds, however, represented by letters in the alphabet. And they will be challenging to pronounce at first, probably giving you a stutter.

Keep in mind that the "p" and "v" sounds are not found in Arabic, so it's a good indicator that if you find yourself using either one, you should adjust your pronunciation.

Of course, the differences between Arabic and English don't end here. But these are the issues a student is likely to come across at some point in their studies. With luck, being aware of these pitfalls will make your learning just that much more effective and fun.

Daniel C Howard is a language teacher living in Asia. He has over a decade of experience teaching all ages a variety of subjects. For free info and lessons on LANGUAGE, please visit his blog at here.

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