1: Arabic script is hard to learn.

Truth: It is the easiest part of learning Arabic. If you are willing to spend one hour per day, you can learn the whole alphabet in a week. ِArabic is a phonetic language which means that you write what you hear and pronounce what you see. There are NO spelling irregularities as in English. After you learn your alphabet and vowel markings, you can immediately read any voweled text. How cool is that?

2: I have to learn a dialect to communicate with Arabs.

Truth: Modern Standard Arabic enables you to communicate with more than 90% of the Arabs that you are likely to come in contact with. Any Arab who has completed elementary education and has access to television and radio can understand MSA and speak basic MSA which should be more than enough for communication purposes. It is true that conversing in MSA can be awkward and tiring for the less educated, that’s why taxi drivers, vegetable sellers, or bread ladies don't make good practice partners when you are still a beginner.  Try to talk with people who are more educated. Not only will you understand more, but you will also be talking about a wider range of topics beyond ‘what’s your name’ ‘where are you from” “do you like my country?”

3:  ( Related to #2 ) When I speak MSA, people don’t understand me.

Truth: Unless you are dealing with an illiterate population in a remote village, chances are it’s because of your heavy accent and grammatically incorrect sentence. Most beginners have trouble pronouncing and distinguishing ه ح س ص ط د ض ع ق and many British and American students can’t roll the “r”, that’s 1/3 of the alphabet. Ask yourself: if you mispronounced 1/3 of the English letters, how well could you be understood?

4: Native Arabic speakers make the best teachers for beginners.

Truth: Yes and No. When it comes to pronunciation, no one can teach you better than a native speaker. But when it comes to grammar, the answer is usually no. If your native Arabic teacher has never learned the methodology or teaching techniques suitable for NON-NATIVE speakers, they will teach in the same way they learned Arabic in elementary schools which is confusing at best and ineffective at worst for non-native learners. They usually skip parts in the grammar that came naturally to them but are really hard for non-natives. For example, an eight-year-old would have no trouble telling you the plurals of the following words:
كتاب – كتب، قماش – أقمشة، دكّان – دكاكين، اتصال – اتصالات  
even if he/she doesn’t know the meaning of the words. This is because the child has been exposed to the language for eight years and has learned patterns and rhythms of plurals naturally.  So does it mean you have to wait for eight years before you can say سكًّين – سكاكين? I hope not. A good Arabic teacher, native or not, should be able to give you rules that cover 90% of the broken plurals, and you will just have to memorize the remaining 10%. The rules aren’t perfect, but they are 90% better than memorizing broken plurals one by one. Native speakers use these rule to derive plurals, they just don’t realize they are using them, and VERY FEW can articulate and summarize the rules on demand.  If you ask a native speaker why this plural is this way and that plural is that way, 99% chance he/she will give you a puzzled look and tell you it’s just the way it is!!

5: Al Mawrid Arabic-English dictionary is easier and better for beginners because it lists words in alphabetical order.

Truth: If you are serious about Arabic study at all, you should use Hans Wehr dictionary which lists words by roots, and gives you masdars, middle letter vowel markings for form I verbs, and noun plurals.  Al Mawrid and many other Arabic-English dictionaries on the market list Arabic words alphabetically which makes them easy to use, but counter-productive in the long run. The most common complaint I’ve heard about Hans Wehr is “I can’t find the word.” It is true that in order to use Hans Wehr, you need to learn the Arabic root system which is the foundation, core, and beauty of the language, and is what distinguishes it from other languages. If you don’t want to be bothered with the root system, you might as well drop Arabic and go learn something else… like Chinese which is loosely structured, just the opposite of Arabic.  I’m just kidding. If you think Arabic is too hard, you should probably stay away from Chinese as well.  Here is an example to demonstrate the root system and why you should learn it: the following words are all listed under one root “جمع” in Hans Wehr, but in different places in Al Mawrid : gather, assemble, join, combine, unite, sum up, plural, amass, rally, have sex, decide unanimously, meeting, total, Friday, association, organization, mosque, university, society, community, compilation, list, group, series, etc. Would you like to learn these words all in one fell swoop from Hans Wehr or one by one from Al Mawrid? My Arabic teacher once said: “ Hans Wehr is for serious students while Al Mawrid is for tourists.” Which category are you in?



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