Is Arabic Hard to Learn?

In short, Arabic is hard to learn.

It’s widely spoken, but it’s difficult to master.

Arabic is the most widespread across the Western Sahara, but it is also spoken all around the world, with about 313 million Arabic speakers, according to Babbel. After all, Arabic is an official language in 22 countries across the globe, and it’s at least partly spoken as a mother tongue in 11 more countries. 

From the Atlantic coast of northern Africa all the way across to Iran, over 200 million people speak Arabic as their first language.

With so many people speaking Arabic—and for so long—then, why is it such a difficult language to learn?

Arabic is considered a tough one, partially because there are so many different dialects. Never mind that, for native English speakers, Arabic is written and read in the opposite direction (right to left, rather than left to right). Oh, and it’s a completely different alphabet.

Still, however, Arabic is a fascinating language to learn—especially because it has influenced so many other languages, like Spanish. Did you know that about a third of Spanish vocabulary (or about 1,000 words) is rooted in Arabic? It dates back to the Moor invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in the 711 AD in the eighth century.

In other words: Arabic may be complicated to completely wrap your head around at first, but it’s a language that’s teeming with culture and history that’s well worth your time and effort to understand.

How Many Arabic Languages/Dialects Are There?

Arabic is actually a macrolanguage. It has 30 different varieties—and people who speak one variety may not understand people who speak another. For example, Arabic in northern Africa (such as in Morocco, where they speak a dialect called Darija) is notably different from Gulf Arabic (spoken in Saudi Arabia, for example).

Fortunately for someone looking to learn Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is rather universal. It’s the preferred version in business, media and law. In fact, it’s the only variant of the Arabic language that’s taught in schools, at all levels of education.

So, if you’re interested in learning Arabic—unless you’re traveling or living somewhere specific, where you want to learn the local language variant—Modern Standard Arabic is your surest bet.

What Makes Arabic Difficult?

There are a multitude of reasons that Arabic is a challenging language to learn. Of course, some learners will have more trouble than others depending on a variety of factors.

People who have access to Arabic language lessons, religious roots (the scripture of Islam is Arabic) or family ties to Arabic-speaking regions of the world, for example, may have an easier time picking up on the language. 

Still, here are a few reasons why Arabic may require more brain power than other languages. 

Alphabet

Learning Arabic means that you also have to learn the alphabet—and what each letter sounds like. 

The Arabic alphabet doesn’t use As, Bs or Cs. Instead, it’s called Al-abjadiyah, and it has 28 letters that are unique to Arabic. Almost all of them are consonants (though there are some vowels), and most of them have four different forms, depending on the letters before and after them. So the same letter will look different depending on where it sits in the word.

Pronunciation

Word pronunciations in Arabic can be challenging at first since the language encompasses some sounds that others don’t use.

For example, in Arabic, a lot of the sounds are generated in the back of the throat. There are six letters that come from the throat: ayn ( ع ), ghayn ( غ ), haa’ ( ح ), haa ( هـ ) hamzah ( ء ) and khaa’ ( خ ).

However, the good news is that Arabic is written phonetically, so once you know how to read the alphabet, you can read words just by looking at the letters.

Writing System

While English is written from left to right, Arabic is written from right to left. The letters are also all conjoined in cursive script, so there are no spaces between them (with the exception of a few “selfish letters”). As mentioned, some of the letters change form depending on where they fall in the word and the letters surrounding them. 

It’s also worth noting that there are no capital letters in Arabic. So everything is written the same way, whether it’s the start of a sentence, a name, title or something else you’d otherwise capitalize in English.

Grammar

Arabic has some specific grammar rules, and some can actually help make it easier to learn—but you have to know what they are first. 

• In many languages, word order is important. But in Arabic, you can combine verbs, objects and subjects in any order, and most ways technically make sense.
• Arabic doesn’t have a perfect tense.
• There are inversions when forming questions.
• There are three types of word categories in Arabic:

• Nouns, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs all have “ism” ( إسم ).
• Verbs all have “fi’l” ( فعل ).
• Prepositions, prefixes and conjunctions all have “‘harf ” ( حرف ).

• Modern Standard Arabic has single and plural nouns, like English. But plurals refer to three or more. Arabic also has duals, which refer to two.
• All words have roots, which have meanings. These meanings can help you make sense of other words once you understand various roots. Take, for example, the root ‘a-l-m. The verbs ‘alima (to know), ‘allama (to teach) and a’lama (to inform) are all similar—and they possess the same root, so you can tell just by looking at it.
• All words are gendered. They’re either masculine or feminine. Feminine words can be easier to identify, since many of them end in a ( ة ).

There are a ton of other grammar rules, but those are just a few to paint a picture for you.

Fewer Resources

Arabic is not as widely spoken in the United States as other languages like Spanish and Chinese, for example. For that reason, it can be difficult to find reputable resources outside of the internet. 

It’s especially difficult to learn if your native language is not English, since most Arabic lessons start in English.

10 Aspects that Make Arabic Learnable

Don’t worry. While Arabic is undoubtedly tough to master, that’s not to say that it’s not learnable at all.

Trust us. Here are 10 aspects of the language that make it doable.

1. The verbs are arguably easy to conjugate.
2. Because the roots have meaning, you can understand many words just by learning one.
3. Since Arabic is written phonetically, the pronunciations can be quite simple for some speakers.
4. Because you can arrange Arabic words in multiple ways, you don’t need to consider sentence structure quite as much.
5. Arabic is widely spoken around the world, so you can be easily exposed if you seek it out in the right places. You can find plenty of books, songs, videos and more that can help you learn Arabic. Language schools around the world also teach Arabic. 
6. Many countries speak Arabic, so if you’re a traveler, it’s easy to find a place to visit to practice the language. You can travel to popular places like Morocco, Egypt or Lebanon, for example.
7. Because Arabic uses a completely different alphabet from English, it’s a very different language altogether. That can actually be a huge plus because you may simply memorize words easier rather than constantly trying to make sense of similarities or translate in your head.
8. Arabic is a very poetic language. After all, the letters are all strung together. Many people say speaking sounds song-like. Well, music is easy to memorize thanks to catchy rhythms, so Arabic can be, too.
9. Arabic writing is a lot like writing in cursive, with the only exception that you write right to left instead of left to write. You may already have that skill.
10. Because Arabic has a different alphabet and consists of all sorts of sounds we don’t make in English, it can be fun to learn. Inviting a new challenge can be exciting, and that energy is motivational.

As with anything, studying a little harder (or smarter) can help you learn Arabic faster.

Tools like the Dorothy memory app can help you hold onto more of it by helping you study words and phrases that you’re likely to forget. And, if you keep up with studying smartly, you can certainly learn Arabic and anything else you want.