How Difficult Arabic Is

[Chaotic Muslem]

Salam,

So a new member of our crew joined last week. He is American and apparently never ever tried even to say salam XD so he gotta learn everything from scratch. He asked for help to pick up quickly the most important phrases so he can be efficient in dealing with us.

I was looking around internet for a video that keeps repeating phrases till mind start repeating them itself. I found this video that says that the most difficult part of Arabic is the pronunciation and that 7a and Ha sound same for non arab ears 0.o

I was like : this can't be true. 7a is elemental.. it is what you say when you cough and when you clear your throat ko7e ko7! e7m

It is as elemental as ha and aa, just open your mouth and ha will come out or an aa 0.0 ....7a is as much elemental as that 0.o

[Ali_Hussain]

salam,

dhad (ض) and 'ayn (ع) and possibly sad (ص)

(but not pronouncing these letters isn't embarrassing, virtually no non Arabs pronounce them, except those who have learned Arabic, and even then it varies from person to person - also salaam vs salam etc, Arabs also don't tend to correct bad pronunciation, so even if technically it isn't correct, it isn't an issue)

You're friend probably hasn't had the pronunciations explained to him properly so that he understands what their equivalent is in English.

Ha (ح) is the 'h' of: Aha!

Whereas ha (ه) is the 'h' of: Hello

He should watch this:

 

 

[realizm]

ق

ظ  

 

[Laayla]

Bismehe Ta3ala,

Assalam Alikum Sister @Chaotic Muslem

As you know the arabic language is known as lughat al ض

What other languages has this pronunciation of ض

M3 Salamah, FE AMIN Allah 

[Chaotic Muslem]

10 hours ago, Laayla said:

Bismehe Ta3ala,

Assalam Alikum Sister @Chaotic Muslem

As you know the arabic language is known as lughat al ض

What other languages has this pronunciation of ض

M3 Salamah, FE AMIN Allah 

As far as I know, Arabic is the only one XD

[Sumerian]

Arabic is easy and I was raised in the West yet I can read and write it and I attend no classes. 

Facts

[shadow_of_light]

Grammatically speaking, Arabic isnt a difficult language but the accent is not beautiful.

Some African languages also have some very odd sounds.

Some languages lack some basic sounds, for example French lacks"r" or Arabic lacks "p, zh (as sio intelevision), ch (as tu in picture), g (as in gallary)".

Italian and Hebrew way of pronouncing R is also unusual for me: they say "rrrr".

* If you want to learn how to pronounce ch, repeat saying "white shoes". If you repeat it quickly, then it will become "why choose".

[حسين]

1 hour ago, E.L King said:

Arabic is easy and I was raised in the West yet I can read and write it and I attend no classes. 

Facts

Teach me your ways of learning Arabic so easily, reading and writing that is. 

[hasanhh]

The proper pronunciation of Arabic has always been a shibboleth for me.  

 

[hasanhh]

Seriously, @Chaotic Muslem , one lsIamic source that can help him is House of Quran. This site has variable speed recitations and several reciters to choose from so he can get the one easiest/clearest to hear.

[Sirius_Bright]

10 hours ago, E.L King said:

Arabic is easy and I was raised in the West yet I can read and write it and I attend no classes. 

Facts

You should post this on poor jokes thread. 

[Uthman bin Madhun]

A great video on distinguishing 

Ha (ح) and ha (ه) 

[Sumerian]

10 hours ago, Sirius_Bright said:

You should post this on poor jokes thread. 

Bro if its hard i wouldnt know how to do it. I dont do hard stuff only easy stuff.

18 hours ago, حسين said:

Teach me your ways of learning Arabic so easily, reading and writing that is. 

You have to be born Arab.. naa im joking.

Watch Medina series bro

[Ibn Al-Ja'abi]

Salams,

One must understand that nothing makes a language objectively harder than any other, but it is based on who the speaker is and what he speaks and what he personally struggles with as a language learner. The presenter of this video made the case that it has a number of very strange sounds (as far as most Indo-European languages go and all European languages). Many of these are the guttarals: خ, ح, and ه might be difficult for many people to differentiate, and since the only difference between ح and ه is that the latter is the same as the former except in the former the pharynx is slightly constricted causing that throaty sound. Similarly many people confuse the ق and ك, and the ء and ع (like previously, the difference between these two sounds is that ع has the pharynx slightly more constricted), the ص and the س, etc. However if you speak languages with these sounds, for example one of the Modern Aramaic languages like Suryoyo which has all these sounds, learning these wouldn't be very hard to pick up. Otherwise you'll need to accustom your ears and your mouth to recognizing and making them. Another classic case of a "hard language" is Mandarin which (aside from its complex writing system) has tones which are foreign to many people, but if you speak Cantonese or even Vietnamese, which do have tones, this concept isn't so foreign.

At worst not having good pronunciation leads to a noticeable accent, but it likely won't lead to an experienced speaker (especially a native) not understanding the person at all. There are even dialects of Arabic which have lost their pharyngeal sounds, Chadic for example, yet speakers still understand what is being said based on things like context. For example the word for hand (يد which became إيد) and the word عيد (festival) are pronounced the same, īd. However the speakers of Chadic can tell what was intended based on context, the same way speakers of English can tell apart homonyms. So if I were speaking about drawing a map and pronounced حدد as هدد you'd likely know what I meant to say. I find often problems with Arabic lie in the grammar being very foreign to learners with things like roots instead of stems, declensions, and inflection, while, say, if a speaker of Aramaic came along he'd likely have an easier time, especially if he's well educated and known classical Syriac where word order could be more free (like the presenter talks about in the Qur'anic word order).

 

On 11/13/2017 at 4:35 PM, Laayla said:

 What other languages has this pronunciation of ض

Not many, but there are a couple. Some Berber languages in West Africa and a language, I believe, in Nigeria. The historical pronunciation during the Prophet's time is suspected to be different by linguists, it's likely preserved in a couple of regional dialects in some villages in southern Hijaz.

Wallahu A'lam

wassalam