The amount of effort required to learn Arabic is not really that much different from that required to learn another case-intensive language, such as German. Of course, for native English speakers, learning German would be much easier since both languages are Germanic, and since both share the same alphabet. Here, this might be of interest:

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/german/the-awful-german-language.html

Now the trickiest thing about Arabic is the “harakaat”, or the diacritic marks. These are not written, most of the time, and when learners try to read unmarked text (and even native speakers), it is *extremely* difficult to get them all right. Consider this:

I see the man.

(Anaa) 2ara ‘r-rajula. (my note about transliteration in the previous post applies here)

(Anaa) –> I. This is optional (like in Spanish) and sounds quite odd if used.

2ara –> imperfective first-person singular form of triliteral root ra-alif-ya

‘r-rajula –> the man. Notice how the “a” in “al” (the definite article) assimilates into the vowel preceding it, and how the “l” is not pronounced, but rather the consonant following it is geminated (sun and moon letters). And notice how the final vowel is “a”.

Now let’s flip the roles:

The man sees me.

Ar-rajulu yaraanee.

Notice how the root ra-alif-ya is conjugated. Conjugation is extremely complex in Arabic and I have encountered many, many Arabs (including a few teachers) who mixed up their masculine and feminine verb conjugations.

Okay, now notice how the final vowel in “Ar-rajulu” is “u”. Now this may be extremely frustrating for learners since there’s absolutely no way of knowing which case-ending to use (or to assume is being used when you’re reading a text) unless you analyze the position of the word in the sentence carefully. The example I gave is rather straightforward, but sometimes it can get unbelievably complicated.

So yes, Arabic grammar is *extremely* difficult to learn, but it’s not really much more difficult than, say, Finnish or Japanese. (Finnish grammar is devilish!!)

That aside, I don’t think it would really be accurate to say that Arabs speak mutually-unintelligible “local languages” among themselves. An analogy might be drawn within the Anglosphere, where everyone can speak, understand and write in standard English, but the dialects different people speak may sometimes be mutually unintelligible. Of course, it’s much more… err, polarized, so to speak, in the Arab world, but when was the last time you had any clue what the heck Sean Paul was singing about? Some Scottish sitcoms are even subtitled when broadcast on American TV. Though you wouldn’t say that they’re speaking a different language, would you? And you could always communicate with them using Standard English (unless they’re really uneducated). This might be of interest:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1711

So basically, this is what it’s like in the Arab World:

Everyone understands everyone else most of the time but most Arabs have a hard time trying to understand Maghrebi (Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan) Arabic. Communication is possible most of the time among educated speakers (though, interestingly, I was attending a lecture about Ottoman art last year—given in Arabic—and I was surprised to see that after the lecture was over, all the Arabs that were there: Syrians, Iraqis, Moroccans, Lebanese… they were all speaking with each other in French!! I think that’s because French would allow them to express themselves more freely in intellectual terms and using Classical Arabic would simply be too cumbersome. Dialectal Arabic in this case is hopeless).

So basically, it boils down to this:

Advantages of learning Classical Arabic:
- you get to read written Arabic
- communication is possible 90% of the time, unless the person you’re speaking to is uneducated
- everyone understands it, but not everyone can speak it fluently
- you can convey more complex concepts
- lots of learning resources (thanks to the huge worldwide Muslim community)

Disadvantages:
- frustratingly difficult to learn
- you would not understand dialectal Arabic. This means you won’t understand what people say amongst themselves, you won’t understand most songs, and you won’t understand what is being said on certain TV and radio channels

Advantages of learning one of the many dialects of Arabic:
- you’d be able to communicate with the speakers of that dialect more freely
- you’d be able to understand songs and common people’s conversations
- if you learn Egyptian or Lebanese Arabic, everyone should be able to understand you (though you might have a tough time trying to understand others)
- they’re much, much, much, much, much (this cannot be overstated) easier than Classical Arabic

Disadvantages:
- written Arabic would be all but inaccessible to you. (though you could learn both Classical Arabic and one of the dialects, and many people do this)
- understanding other Arabs might be pretty hard at times
- you can’t write it down; there’s no standardized orthographic system. This means fewer resources for learning

Now, if you wish to live in the Arab World, you *should* learn Arabic, since not that many people speak English or French, and those that do may not be sufficiently proficient in the language for you to be able to have meaningful and deep conversations with. And, if you learn Classical Arabic, I daresay that 90% of the time, you’ll have very little trouble communicating with Arabs, no matter where they come from. Thanks to the pan-Arab policies our governments adopt, people are exposed to CA a lot, and communication shouldn’t really be all that difficult. A bit awkward at first, perhaps, but for all intents and purposes, assuming you’re good enough at the language, communication is possible with most (80-90%) Arabs.

When Arabs speak with each other, they usually use their own dialect, which most of the time is understood by the other person. EXCEPT Maghrebi Arabs, such as myself, who quite often happen to find themselves in the precarious situation of having to speak Arabic with a person can’t speak French or English, and who thinks they can’t speak Arabic at all and who doesn’t understand their dialect (it’s really frustrating how most Arabs actually believe Maghrebi Arabs speak “Frenchified” Arabic or Berber, and how they don’t realize that the only reason we understand them is because of their popular TV shows, not because their dialects are any more “Arabic” than ours are).

So when we DO speak with other Arabs, we either use our own dialect just to spite them, or try to imitate their dialect (conversations of this sort are hilarious at times) or, for Maghrebis who live in the Gulf, use a form of Levantine Arabic that pretty much everyone understands. I’ve been mistaken for a Lebanese many a time, and I’m starting to think I should just speak in my own Eastern Algerian dialect whether or not people understand it, as a sort of cultural statement.

As for your last question, well, that’s kind of hard to answer. I’d say Arabic neither acts as a liturgical, written language that no one speaks (like Latin in the 15th Century), nor as a spoken language with certain mutually-unintelligible dialects (like English). It’s somewhere in between.

I think, though, that the really great thing about learning Arabic is being able to read and listen to poetry in the language. Arabic is known for its poetry that can move men to tears even if they don’t understand what is being said. There’s just something about the structure of Arabic that makes it so… emotional, so emphatic. Research it.

Anyway, hope this helped!

Also the thing that helped me the MOST in achieving fluency was filling notebook after notebook with conjugations. When verb forms are available to the brain and tongue on demand it adds a whole new dimension to fluency.

I would consider it… if I can even find it! The thing almost killed me, so I wasn’t to eager to keep it in view ;)

Will take a look once the new book is done.

Tim

Please delete my post of 22Feb. My 25Feb revision got to the point, faster, and with more clarity. Believe it or not! LOL.

Casey