I will still learn it because I'm motivated. I also want to learn Polish, Arabic and Indonesian because I want to. You need motivation. Just so you can "reach out to people" is not very good motivation. I have no cultural, family or religious ties to English. Same with French. And Spanish too. Still, you see me using English to write this comment. Well, I had to learn it in school. Because it's spoken by so many people and has become the language of international communication.
Why do I still use it? Because so many people use it and it's really useful. I actually kind of dislike it. I was GOOD in this language despite having no motivation beyond getting good grades and some genuine interest in learning new things.
Useful and easy to learn! No personal ties though. Just annoyed by occasionally encountering a bulk of Spanish posts in the middle of a discussion and not understanding anything. On the other hand Some of my ancestors were Polish. I'm not at all interested in the language and I'm sure that I'd suck if I tried to learn Polish.
TL;DR: You don't get to decide what kind of motivation someone needs to learn a language successfully. Every kind of motivation is okay It's true hebrewLearner! At the same time, the source of motivation can come from will. In this case, if he really want's to speak the worlds major languages- that alone could be a strong motivation!
But, I agree with you on "most people of that language speaking English. It depends the area of the world you want to reach, as for French or Spanish, they are more "useful" in Western areas, Americas, Africa, but less in Asia than Hindi. You can "get by" in English on a business level in India, and talking to educated, urban middle classes and upper classes.
Much official business is in English, there are English newspapers and TV stations, etc. You will certainly have a much less rich experience, and miss out on all the warmth and feeling. Hindi is a fun language with a lot of flavour. Spoken Hindi is very colloquial and fun. The grammar is fairly easy, but like English, the hard part is idiomatic control of the language. The Hindi novel is terrific. The vernacular literatures of India are far more interesting yet internationally less appreciated than the in my opinion overrated and overread, export-driven Indian novel in English.
Hindi will open the door to a wealth of mediaeval poetry in the various "dialects" of the language complicated story behind calling them dialects! You'll get access to a huge part of India's Hindu civilization and, if you put a little extra effort into learning the Arabic script, you will get access to the Islamic civilization of South Asia through Urdu, since at their core Urdu and Hindi are the same language. However, studies have shown that Japanese is the single language that takes English people the longest to learn.
Because of the immense number of Kanji, or individual characters, a learner has to memorise to become even reasonably literate in Japanese. Many of these are characters that were borrowed from Chinese over the past few thousand years. Which means, to make matters more complicated, even Chinese speakers may not recognise all of the characters in Japanese.
They may be sourced from loanwords from fifteenth-century China. Mandarin tops the list as the perfect storm of challenges for English speakers. It also requires the learning of thousands of characters to achieve literacy. It gives you access to millions of people you might not otherwise be able to get to know. And there you have it. With Japanese, seeing a Kanji Character gives you very little clue about how to read it. So the written language must also be intensively studied to be able to read any writing accessible to a normal literate adult.
Ethnologue reports that Japanese is the ninth most spoken language in the world, by number of speakers. Read the original article on Business Insider UK.
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Or do you have suggestions for specific movies? Getting ready to get back into arabic, full time, in Egypt from I'm going to carefully analyze this and a couple of other resources. You do not have to take Arab culture in order to learn Arabic.
You don't have to assimilate. To say otherwise is false. That is like telling English learners "you have to assimilate into white culture in order to learn English". I ask you kindly to explain the difference between RocketArabic and TalkinArabic. I understand the essentials of both of the courses, but if I am a total beginner, which one is more suitable for me? I love language as well and probably the only student who took Latin for fun 20 years ago!! So, would your recommendation be to learn Egyptian dialect if you want to converse with a possible larger population?
Then, later learn MSA to read and such I have been studying Fushha for over a year and speak a little of it. I want to go to the dialect, but at this time I do not know which one. There are many Arabs in the European city where I live, but they all chat in their dialects. I understand that if I choose one of the dialects even commonly understood, for example, Egyptian , it will not be the language of the heart for another people, for example, Lebanese or Syrians.
Thanks for your effort to help others If anyone wants to practice arabic , just add me in Skype. There is a free comprehensive reading and grammer Arabic course for beginners to advanced students, Muslims and non-Muslims, on Madinah Arabic. Just wondering, what dialect would You recommend for frequent travel to Dubai, Morocco, Israel, Geneva? Thanks for this piece. For translation work, would you recommend learning MSA or a particular dialect. Which would be most in-demand in the translation world?
Thanks, Christian Cain. Hello Nagel Iam in a dilemma ,if there is a language conflict then Iam in one, like cultural shock. Iam kenyan but originally my parents come from yemen.. I was mainly with the sub continent people and even in my work front.
I admit that Arabic is fairly hard when you have never really gotten to know the alphabet. Googling 'how do I learn Arabic' brought me here, so y'all know just where I stand with it currently. Thanks for a super-informative post, Donovan.
My question for you and the community of like-minded language enthusiasts is: where do I begin? From what I'm picking up here, I guess the answer is - abjad Haven't found anything in the Resources tab, so any pointers would be much appreciated. What would be the closest dialect to Gulf Khaliji arabic offered on talkinarabic. BTW native Arabic speaker understand most of the Arabic dialects, but he cant pronounce them, so we can't say dialects is a different languages, and i think its not the case for a foreigner who learned a specific dialect, thats why MSA is important, all arabs studied it in schools, universities, reading books, novels and hearing news using MSA, so you can communicate with them using it.
Do you have any suggestions on using Arabic to learn various topics? I mean learning topics as one would at school and University. All boils down to your needs and objectives. But a language, any language, means first and foremost communication in authentic situation sto get your message across and to achieve your purposes when you interact with fellow human beings. I have been teaching Arabic for 12 years. My conclusion is the language should be taught either using an intergrated , i.
I spoke my mother tongue until the age of 6 before entering school and learning Formal Arabic of the media and print.
In the latter, teaching "MSA" is still dominant and I am not exagerating when I say that is because of the intransigeance of teachers. The reasons those teachers give are neither scientific or logical. Hi I am a student at the University of Georgia currently learning Arabic for the first time!
I know French and took 5 years of Spanish but don't recall much. I also have a tutor I meet with twice a week for an hour and watch Arabic tv on Netflix with English subtitles. I really want to study abroad at an Arabic school in possibly Morrocco, do you have any ideas as to where I should study or what I should do. I want to make the most of my last year and a half at UGA.
Thank you so much! Hey Donovan, I really enjoyed your podcast. I'm not very good with languages and only just starting out learning Arabic but much of what you say resonates with me.
Luckily, I have made a friend with a Saudi who devotes a lot of time teaching me. Every day I am expanding my vocabulary and learning lots about the Arab World. This is the first introduction to Arabic that didn't put me off with the complexities- well done!
See All Reviews. Currently learning: Greek. Arabic Resources. Spanish Resources. French Resources. Italian Resources. German Resources. Mandarin Chinese Resources.
Hindi Resources. Portuguese Resources. Korean Resources. Japanese Resources. Russian Resources. Other Language Resources. Written by Donovan Nagel. Read time 10 mins. Comments Want to learn Arabic? Like I said, it took me about 3 years to reach a point where I was speaking Arabic fluently. And understanding people when they spoke back to me.
It definitely did. We also recommend this resource for Egyptian Arabic. I would not attempt to learn Modern Standard Arabic first Or even at the same time as learning a spoken dialect. Grab the link to this article. Copy Link. Support me by sharing:. Join Now. Donovan Nagel - B. Comment Policy : I love comments and feedback positive and negative but I have my limits.
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