Arabic Tutorial – Introduction

Concepts Of Arabic

Arabic is spoken as a mother tongue by between about 400 million people across 25 countries. Over a billion people can read the script even if they can’t understand the language.

Arabic happens to be one of the official languages of the United Nations. Therefore, many people learn the language for formal reasons.

At about 1,500 years old, Arabic also happens to be a very old language. It was the language of scholarship throughout the rule of the Islamic empires – a period of well over 1,000 years from the 7th century right down to the 19th and even 20th.

The greatest books of medicine, geology, law, philosophy, and basically any subject you can imagine were all written in the Arabic language.

Therefore, many of the most advanced people in their fields of study learn Arabic for scientific and anthropological reasons.

Arabic is also the language of the Qur’an (the Islamic holy book). It doesn’t matter what your beliefs are, the Qur’an is unequivocally, undeniably and undoubtedly the greatest form of Arabic literature, and indeed the greatest form of literature.

The beauty of this piece of literature is, in fact written in Arabic

Facts About Arabic

Fact 1: If you are studying the Arabic for formal purposes, you will need a more formal courses. You will be relying more on books and placing more attention on grammar rather than your ability to speak fluently.

The ability to speak casually and fluently will come later. And the studies will last longer than a year or two; perhaps as much as 4 years.

Most universities and colleges offer Arabic language courses. Some even span 3 or 4 years. Most of these are quite good and will give you a firm grounding in Modern Standard Arabic.

Fact 2: If you are studying Arabic in order to understand the Qur’an or works of classical scholarship, you will need to master Classical Arabic.

There are several courses around the world that offer mastery in Classical Arabic especially, in some local Modrasahs but not everybody will have money, time and resources to attend those classes.

A Note Of Caution

The wrong thing people do when studying Arabic formally is to purchase a few books and start learning on your own.

Many books claim that you can use them for self-learning, but let’s get real. What you need is a medium or long term course with plenty of hours of instruction and lots of practice on your own time.

Also, you don’t have to quit your job, you just need patient and choose time that’s most convenient for you to go through all lessons in this tutorial.