Introduction:

The Arabic language first emerged in the fourth century CE. It is named after the Arabs, which usually describes the people of Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian Peninsula. It is the third most spoken language in the world after English and French. Arabic is considered as a sacred language of the religion of Islam as the religious texts Quran and Hadith are written in Arabic. Arabic as a language has influenced many languages across the globe some of which are widely spoken in India for instance – Hindi, Urdu, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Bengali, Sindhi, Odia. Its influence on the Indian languages makes it clear that it is definitely not impossible to learn for an Indian. Let us see the level of difficulty it is at for an Indian in this blog.

• Things to keep in mind while learning Arabic 

Looking at Arabic many of you would be questioning your decision of learning it. It might seem difficult at first but it is not impossible to learn it. 

Arabic is written and read from right to left unlike many other Indian languages that are written and read from left to right. In the beginning, it would be tricky for you to read and write it. But with regular practice, you will get used to its pattern. At the initial stages, you would often find yourself getting confused between your native language and Arabic. But with practice, you will be able to train your mind to write and read from both directions. 

Another important thing is the characters and grammatical parts of the language. Starting with the basics right from the alphabets it will take some time to perfect them and then move forward to learning the word formations, syntax, and grammar. The Arabic language has a lot of grammatical rules. It is not something to be scared of but an area that would need a lot of your attention. This is what exactly makes it a complex language to learn as compared to other Indian languages. 

Pronunciation also plays an important role and is considered crucial while learning Arabic because it is an inflectional language, where the meaning of any word depends on the tone it is said in and it changes based on the tone. It is easier for Indians to learn and have a grip on the pronunciations and phonetics of the language because the native Indian languages are related to Arabic. It is, however, difficult for the speakers of the Latin- oriented languages as they are nowhere similar to Arabic, and getting pronunciations right can prove very tricky. 

You being an Indian would prove to be of a lot of advantage as many Indian languages are influenced by Arabic and few of them also have a shared vocabulary. Arabic can prove to be very difficult if your first language is English, French or Japanese, etc. these foreign languages are highly unrelatable to Arabic and mostly do not share anything in common. 

You would have an upper hand if you are an Urdu speaker, as Arabic is the easiest language you can learn after learning Urdu. Arabic is the parent language of Urdu, the characters and the writing and reading pattern, and alphabets are almost the same. What is different in both languages is the individual sounds of the vowels and consonants. As both the languages are inflectional languages, a slight change in the tone can completely alter the meaning of the word or sentence. However, it still would need the practice to master the Arabic language. 

Speakers of Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, etc languages will also find it easy to learn as all these languages share a lot of words with Arabic. The Arabic language has always had an influence on these languages with borrowed words and their meaning makes it easier to build a vocabulary and understand the language. What is tricky here is that Hindi and Punjabi languages are written from left to right so a speaker of this language would require to learn the skill of reading and writing from left to right. Sindhi is written from right to left just like Urdu and Arabic. 

• Conclusion 

Learning Arabic is not very difficult especially for an Indian, however, it will not be wrong in saying that it is a bit tricky and a vast language to learn. And would definitely need a lot of practice to be fluent in it. Do not let it scare you and if you are really passionate about learning Arabic you will always find the motivation to keep learning it. The key to learning any language is you need to be really interested in it or you will just end up quitting it because of a lack of motivation. Don’t let a language’s difficulty stop you from learning it.