Can I learn to speak Arabic in a year?

All variants of Arabic combined are spoken by up to 422 million people (native and non-native) throughout the Arab world, making it the world’s fifth most spoken language. Arabic is the liturgical language of 1.8 billion Muslims, and it is one of the United Nations’ six official languages. It is a Semitic language that initially appeared between the first and fourth century CE. It is currently the Arab world’s lingua franca. The ISO gives language codes to thirty variants of Arabic, including Modern Standard Arabic, often known as Literary Arabic, which is a modernised Classical Arabic. This difference is most prevalent among Western linguists. Arabic speakers typically do not differentiate between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, instead referring to both as al-arabiyyatu l-fu or simply al-fu. The language is called after the Arabs, a word originally used to designate people living in the Arabian Peninsula, which was regarded by ancient Greek geographers to be limited by eastern Egypt in the west, Mesopotamia in the east, and the Anti-Lebanon mountains and Northern Syria in the north. Modern Standard Arabic is the official language of 26 states and one disputed region, making it the third most widely spoken language after English and French. Arabic, in its standard form, is the official language of 26 countries and the liturgical language of Islam, as the Quran and Hadith were written in Arabic. Arabic is extensively taught in schools and colleges, and it is widely utilised in the business, government, and the media to various degrees.

Well, it all depends on you, your motivation, and your goals, to begin with. Even if you have a lot of drive, you’ll need a little more to tackle the complexities of Arabic grammar, spelling, and syntax. It will take much less time to learn to speak Arabic than it will to learn to read and write the language. You’ll need to learn all the quirks of the Arabic language, including its script, grammar, and turns of phrase, just like you would any other language. Identification of alphabets and their pronunciations will aid you to speak efficiently and faster. Remember to invest considerable time trying to effectively listen to Arabic, because you can’t speak something you don’t register appropriately while listening! 

Unfortunately, the Arabic alphabet bears no resemblance to the one used in the Western World and shares nothing with our Latin alphabet. Furthermore, each letter in the words can change position. It could be at the beginning, middle, or end of the word, depending on the meaning. For beginners, the Arabic alphabet, its forms, and its script may all appear perplexing at first. But did you know that thanks to the long Islamic occupation of the Iberian peninsula, Arabic has already heavily influenced Spanish, with at least 4000 words of Arabic origin? Although only about half of the words in English are borrowed from Arabic, they are usually borrowed from other intermediary languages first. You need to really learn these well!

How Much Time Does It Take to Learn Arabic?

Arabic, like any other language, can be difficult to learn and will necessitate a great deal of dedication and regular study. If you want to learn Arabic quickly, you should be aware that it will still take several weeks, if not months. You will not be able to learn all of the vocabulary and syntax of Arabic in two hours of study per week. To truly learn how to read and write in Arabic, you must study nearly every day until your brain is completely immersed in Arabic culture. Immersion in Arabic will help you learn it faster. Improve your Arabic vocabulary by working on it! The more you study, learn new Arabic words, and practise them, the more the language will become second nature. To learn Arabic properly, it is estimated that an English speaker will need at least 2200 hours of Arabic classes spread out over 80 weeks – or one and a half years of consistent language study. Some argue that Arabic is just as difficult to learn as Chinese or Korean. In contrast, to learn a language like French, you would only need 23 weeks of classes or approximately 500 to 600 hours of language instruction.

Here are two questions to answer if you want to know how long it will take to learn Arabic completely:

• How many minutes or hours can you devote to studying per day?
• And how many days, weeks, and months are you willing to put up with this?

Your motivation, personal commitment, desire to learn, and, of course, how much free time you have to devote to learning Arabic will all play a role in your daily study. The answer to the second question is somewhat dependent on your response to the first, but you should be aware that learning Arabic in a matter of weeks is nearly impossible. At best, you’ll get a general sense of the language and learn a few Arabic expressions, but at worst, you’ll miss out on the Arabic language’s nuances and risk developing a slew of bad spelling and syntax habits. With the right set of resources, right study methodology, short and long term goals, strict regime, and adequate study time, limited Arabic can be learnt in a year. 

On an optimistic note, I have heard of cases where people forced under conditions of requirements learn even within 6 months, limited of course! So, start by writing down the alphabet (which written Arabic thankfully is (alphabetic), unlike Chinese (character-based)), so that you can read the street signs in Arabic, and most importantly write and recognize your full name in Arabic before jumping to conquer other study literature such as blogs, newspapers in a travel immersion method. 

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