Learning Arabic as a foreign language: questions, answers and advice
This article was born of the many requests I get for advice about learning Arabic as a non-native speaker. It is definitely not meant as an exhaustive or expert guide to learning this rich, complex and diverse language. It is not a grammar guide (sorry for the disappointment — I know you were all champing at the bit for one). It is not a magic bullet — it won’t replace the frustration or anger you will probably feel at some point when, like me, you fail to grasp a concept, or a phrase, or pronunciation. It is simply some thoughts and observations I’ve arrived at after more than four years as a student of Arabic. Other learners will have different thoughts, methods, and experiences.
As a brief bit of background, I studied French literature and language for my undergraduate degree, and always enjoyed languages at school. Visiting friends studying in Damascus, Syria, in early 2011 made me realise how wonderful and useful learning Arabic would be too. I began evening classes in Modern Standard Arabic (more on this below) at University College London in 2015, and supplemented this with Skype sessions in colloquial dialect on NaTakallam, with a Syrian conversation partner. I quickly realised that a few hours a week wasn’t going to be enough to get me to the level I was aiming for. Wanting to use languages more in my profession as a…