India has very old links with the Arab world, and with Persia. For hundreds of years starting in the 11th century, large parts of northern India were ruled by dynasties with roots in that part of the world; the language of the Mughal court was Persian, and so on. This is all well-known, as is the existence of many loan-words from Farsi, Arabic, and Turkish in Hindi/Urdu, the lingua franca of much of northern India and Pakistan. 

 

As a Hindi-speaker, you will find a lot of similarities between Arabic and Hindi. Without even realizing you have been using a lot of Arabic in your life. These are sometimes called loanwords. Some of these are given below- 

 

waqt = وقت = time

admi = آدمي = human being

insaan = انسان = human being

takriban = تقريبا = approximately, almost

leken = لكن = but

shaitan = شيطان = devil, satan

mabhoom = مبهوم = hidden, unknown future event

shukriya = شكر = thank you, not an exact copy, “ya” is added

khabar = خبر = news item

akhbar = اخبار = plural of above

ajab = عجب = wonder, strange occurrence

ajib = عجيب = strange, derived from above root

ajaib = عجايب = plural of ajab, same root. Punjabi/Sikh name

aql = عقل = mind, intellect

dimag = دماغ = intellect in Hindi, though the Arabic word could mean “head”, “skull”, and “brain” as well

azam = عظم = great

azmat = عظمة = greatness, derived from above root

silsila = سلسلة = chain, Hindi = series of events

mushkil = مشكل = problem, unclear

hal = حال = condition, state

mahabat = محبة = love

kharab = خراب = destruction

• The existence of Dialects – There are so many different dialects of the Arabic language and if you want to learn Arabic you first need to choose which dialect do you want to learn according to your needs. 

• Arabic Alphabet – People tend to get very intimidated by the Arabic alphabet whereas, in reality, it’s not difficult to learn. It is not like Chinese where you have thousands of characters to memorize. Arabic has just a normal alphabet with 28 letters. One thing that can be a little bit tricky is the fact that the same letter is written differently depending on whether it is found in the beginning, middle or end of the word. But that is also easy to master once you’ve learned the alphabet. 

• Grammar – One aspect of grammar that can be a little difficult is the number of broken plurals that Arabic has. A sound plural is formed by simply adding a suffix to the singular form, for example, cat – cats. Broken plurals are formed by changing the pattern of consonants and vowels within the word. For example – the word ‘amerikiin (American) has a sound plural which is formed by simply adding the suffix un in the accusative and iiin in the genitive which is amerikiun and amerikiiin. Moroccan – maghribi has a broken plural so in the plural it becomes maghariba (Moroccans). Kitab – book also has a broken plural so it becomes kutub. Sadiq – friend becomes asdiqa. Arabic grammar is a little hard to master but that shouldn’t stop you from learning it. 

These are some things that you need to keep in mind and these are mostly the ones that you may find difficult to learn. Once you’ve mastered all these aspects of the Arabic language, you can take a deep breath and start focusing on your fluency in Arabic. 

• First of all, choose a dialect that you want to learn based on the place that you wanna go to, for example, the gulf. 
• Set clear goals and create a timeline to achieve these goals. 
• Learn with the help of a tutor who can teach you at least once a week or twice a week. 
• Focus on the basics or the easy parts first, don’t try to start with complicated things that are already established as difficult. Slowly move up the ladder. 
• Lastly, practice practice and practice. 

Although, a lot of people still say that learning Arabic is very hard even for a Hindi-speaker. It is comparatively easier for an English or Urdu speaker to learn Arabic. Nonetheless, if you’re motivated enough, anything is possible. Learning a language is a fun process, and it’s a great point for you to start with similar words listed above that are taken from Arabic and then step by step move ahead.