nonthaburi

Moving to KSA next year and I'm wondering about Arabic. To those of you who have learnt it,
how easy did you find it to learn ?( compared to other languages ).
How long did it take you to gain any kind of fluency ?
What difference , if any , does it make to your life ?
What is the structure of the language i.e. how many consonants and vowels are there ?
are the tenses complicated ?
how do you find vocabulary ? are there less words than English or more words ?
is it tonal at all ?

What are the positives and what are the negatives ?

What percentage of expats do you think speak good Arabic and out of those what percentage can read and write it ?

Lot of questions I know but I'm just curious. I like learning languages so my intention is to learn as I don't like watching TV with the sound down.

Oyibopeppeh

Just say "In S'Allah" a lot. You'll get by.

auzdafluff

Ten words you'll be able to get by on.

Yallah - hurry up
Inshallah - If god wills it (local equivalent of with any luck)
Khalas (silent k) - Finish/End of discussion (particularly useful for the many annoying sales calls you'll get, or when you end up hitting an impasse with the Indians/Pakistanis who barely speak English at most service places like dry cleaners)
Shokran - Thank you
Asif – Sorry (This one I find ironic. I say it meaning as if it was my fault, but they think I'm apologising and usually accept it).
Lah – Get used to saying this. It means no.
Na'am – Yes (you RARELY hear this).
Ayna - when
Indama – where
Ay'r – Cock (well it helps to know when someone's calling you one )

The Dean

If you do learn Arabic to a reasonable level of fluency, keep it to yourself (i.e. listen and learn, but don't talk). You'll quickly find out who you can or cannot trust........

........ plus: The locals will assume you have learnt it to cover up for a lack of the other skills you were employed for.

Eeyore

It's one of the more complicated languages to learn to a reasonable level of fluency. It's not tonal but minute differences in inflection can make a big difference to meaning, and there are quite a few sounds you have to learn to make that do not come naturally to native English speakers.

One of the difficulties of Arabic is that there are three basic forms - classical, Modern Standard, and colloquial - and each of those forms uses its own vocabulary and grammar.

Classical Arabic is used exclusively for the Qu'ran and certain other ancient texts - no other purpose.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the form that's actually taught in schools, and it's also the Arabic used on television, in newspapers, in government, in formal situatons and so on. Everybody in the Arabic world understands MSA, but it's NOT used for everyday conversations. If you try to have a casual conversation with somebody using MSA, they will laugh at you (in a nice way, not a nasty one) for talking to them in such a formal way. This can be a problem, because MSA is what most Arabic language courses actually teach.

If you want to speak casually to colleagues and people in the street etc, you need to learn colloquial Arabic. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to find any official courses that teach it. Native Arabic speakers learn it naturally from friends and family, and every Arabic-speaking country has its own particular dialect of it. Jordanian Arabic is different from Syrian Arabic is different from Lebanese Arabic and so on. That's why MSA exists - everybody learns it at school and understands it, even though nobody actually uses it as an everyday spoken language.

The grammar and vocab of colloquial Arabic are typically completely different from MSA. Some words and phrases are the same, but plenty more aren't. Lebanese is probably one of the best colloquial dialects to learn, because it's much less picky about grammar and syntax than many others and it's widely understood throughout the region.

If you're talking Western expats, hardly any. A Westerner with functional fluency in Arabic is a rare beast. Even Westerners who have lived here all their lives often can't read, write or speak Arabic.

I taught myself to read Arabic - if you have a good memory for shapes you can do it in about three weeks - but when I say I can read it, I mean that I can look at a piece of written Arabic and pronounce it, but I don't necessarily understand what it means! Even so, it's come in very useful at times, and Arabs are always amazed that a Westerner can read their language.

I have *very* bad spoken colloquial Arabic; more than "shukran" and "khalas", but not much more. The problem is that so many people here speak English that it just saves time to speak in English rather than stumble my way through in Arabic

csdf

I've learned to read the letters and like Eeyore this means that I can pronounce a word even if I don't know what it means. But a surprising number of words are similar to European words* and I practice a lot when driving, having finally figured out that "shar'ah" means "street".

* One of the most surprising for me was the word for receipt ("fatoora") which sounds very much like the Italian word for receipt ("fattura").

yrsammit

An American coworker of mine speaks Arabic fluently and he uses it on a daily basis. I'm not sure why someone would tell you not to speak it. The only issue is when you begin a conversation with the little Arabic you know and then can't continue. I can throw out a few words and phrases and locals tend to respond positively.

I considered trying to learn properly, but I didn't have the motivation. I think you'd have to be pretty committed to learning and studying if you really want to get anywhere with it.

Paracletus

I've picked up a few words and phrases. I think it's the best thing to do..how often do we not hear complaints back home about bloody immigrants not speaking the language? My Arab friends think it's hilarious when I try to talk to taxi drivers or bar staff a bit pissed. Well..the bar staff generally get my pinoy powers..

My most interesting discovery so far has been the word for ham in Spanish and Arabic seem to be quite similar. Not sure which way it went though.

paulbkk

You may try with KSU
"King Saud University’s Institution of Teaching Arabic for Non-Arabs offers two months’ courses for both men and women. Nasir Al-Ghali, the director of the institution, said each class has about 12 students, a number that has declined since the institution started charging for the courses. Simon Salter, a student at the institution, said the course is challenging because all the course material is in Arabic, even at the intermediate level."
http://http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=114279&d=14&m=9&y=2008&p ix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom

or
http://www.purpleacademy.com/

You can find more private class at below links

http://www.expat-blog.com/en/classif...arabia/riyadh/

Cheers

ottotheboar

If you can learn to read Arabic it does make speaking it much more easy as you can be sure what you are pronouncing. There are differences between countries to be sure but once you have the fundamentals in one country you can genrally be understood in others. You do get a few blank looks when you use a word may be common in Saudi but not used in Jordan. Grammar is tricky as they have subjective and objective such as muslimeen and muslimoon. Egyptians pronounce J as G for exampled Jeddah is Geddah.

abbey08

If you want to understand just how difficult it is to really learn arabic (that is written and spoken) then have a go at working through the first few lessons on this site. You can learn the alphabet and all the sounds for free. The teacher is based in the UK.

http://www.arabic-studio.com/

Good Luck

Eeyore

And nouns have gender, and you simply have to learn which gender applies to which noun (it doesn't necessarily follow any logical pattern) and word endings in other parts of the sentence have to change to agree.

Counting - when you're referring to amounts of things, the way you say the thing you're counting changes according to the amount you're referring to. There are separate grammatical structures for one of something, two of something, and more than two of something.

On the other hand, some aspects of Arabic are pretty easy to grasp. Possession is indicated by word endings - "-ee" means "my", "-ak/-ik" means "your" (-ak when addressing a male, -ik for a female).

The word for "name" is "ism", so "my name" is "ismee", "your name" (to a male) is "ismak". The word "what" is "shoo" (in colloquial anyway), so to ask a male what his name is, just say "Shoo ismak?" - "What your name?" That's easier than quite a few languages, where you'd have to worry about conjugating the verb "to be" to ask the same question.

rdeleonph

this is a very informative thread for a just landed expat here in Saudi

nonthaburi

I would say it took me four years to get a good level of fluency in Thai and that wasn't easy but I like a challenge so I do intend to learn Arabic whilst I'm there. Why not ? I wouldn't watch TV with no sound so why would I walk around not knowing what was going on.

Although I have found that learning the host language can be a bit soul destroying ( you find out what mother@#$%ers everyone is , but what's different there ) on the whole I think it is one of the best things you can do in a new country to get the most out of your stay.

When I think of the thousands of people I must have had a chat with, passed the time of day with , there would have been a lot of experiences I wouldn't have had , if I wasn't able to speak the lingo.

In Thai there are 44 consonants and 32 vowels which were a bit daunting. What is the alphabet like in Arabic ?

UKCityGent

28 characters of the alphabet which is the easy part

The pronouncations are dependent on minimum of 8 sounds - difficult to describe but depending on the character above/below the alaphabet is the way you pronounce it e.g.
if there is an alif (A) and there is a shadda (circle above it - the normal way is to use the previous letters sound and just brethe the alif when speaking fluently
- other characters are used to pronunace the letter twice, the intonation of the letter, and
- some characters change the sound of the letter depending on where the letter is in the word)