Languages are considered easier or more difficult for an English speaker to learn based on a few criteria. The similarity of the structure of the target language to English – grammatically, phonologically and otherwise is one area; another is the presence of cognates or words that come from the same root and are similar in pronunciation. The kind of writing system also plays a role in ease of acquisition.
Arabic is quite different from English when considering these categories. According to the U.S. State Department, learning Arabic takes about 2,400 hours of class time or about 85 weeks. However, just how difficult Arabic is might be a bit of a complicated question..
First of all, Arabic might not be best thought of as one language. It’s diglossic, meaning there is a high form of the language used in the realm of politics, law and religion and there is a low form of the language used for everyday situations, film and popular culture.
The form of Arabic most English speakers are first exposed to in formal classes is the high form of the language known as Modern Standard Arabic, but if the goal is to be able to communicate with people in Arabic as quickly as possible, learning this form of Arabic will certainly cause you difficulty in communicating for some time.. I’ve come to believe that when people talk about Arabic being difficult, they are really talking about MSA.
That’s because its more grammatically complicated than the everyday language. Students need to learn more subject-verb agreements, a different word order and case endings in order to learn MSA, and each of these things bear little resemblance to structures in the English language which is strictly SVO, has lost case endings and really only adds an -s for first person singular in the case of present simple tense for example.
In a study abroad situation, it’s also going to be more difficult to practice and understand. The people students will meet outside of university, whether that’s at a coffee shop or on a bus will not be speaking MSA, making it more difficult to get the valuable outside-the-classroom practice that they need. Students will be able to speak, but understanding will be more difficult as they will most likely be spoken to with a lot of dialect features.
In comparison, the everyday language of the local dialects of Arabic are structurally much simpler and can be practiced more easily outside the classroom than MSA. Like English, they are generally SVO and have lost case endings as well. That’s not to say that they are similar to English, but they also lack some of the more complicated grammatical features that English lacks.
The Writing System
In both MSA and dialect, the writing system is vastly different than English. It has completely different characters and is read right to left. It won’t be easier to learn if you are learning an Arabic dialect, but there is usually a bit more leeway in what are known in ENglish as diacritics. Take this short part of an Islamic prayer for example.
بِسْمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِیْم
The squiggles above and below the letters are diacritics that add a sound in between the main letters. In extremely formal text it will often be necessary to write them, but in dialect they are often omitted.
That doesn’t mean you won’t need to learn how the words are pronounced. In a sense, you’ll still need to learn the diacritics, but you won’t have to be quite so painstakingly detailed if you are learning a dialect. Theoretically, that should free up your learning experience to focus on comprehension and communication.
Your Decision
What makes Arabic so difficult is not just how different it is from English but the fact that you will need to learn two different languages, one of them being quite a bit more complicated than the other, in order to be truly fluent.
Arabic teachers have their own theories about whether students should learn dialect or MSA first, but in my opinion, whether you choose to learn MSA or a dialect should be a decision you make based on your interests and needs. However, just know that MSA is going to be more difficult to learn and communicate in, particularly in the beginning.