Language Learning Resource

Language Facts: 

• Usually, the first step in a language would be to learn the alphabet, but to learn Arabic, the first step will be to choose a dialect to learn. Arabic consists first of Modern Standard Arabic, which is based on Classical Literary Arabic. However, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is not spoken as a daily language for the millions of Arabic speakers. Instead, Arabic is split into distinct regional varieties which may not be mutually intelligible with each other. The dialect you choose may be based on the country or countries you have interest in , or media you want to consume. 

      Some of the larger, general groups of dialects are : 

                  Egyptian Arabic – one of the largest, and most widely understood due to the popularity of Egyptian movies 

                  Levantine Arabic – Spoken in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine 

                  Mesopotamian Arabic – Spoken in Iraq 

                  Maghrebi Arabic – Spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia 

•  The decision if you want to learn a dialect in conjunction with MSA is up to you. Some people suggest learning MSA first and then branching out to a dialect but for most learners this would a tedious and less rewarding endeavor than learning a dialect, or MSA along with a dialect at the same time. 
• The writing system of Arabic is an abjad, meaning that only consonant and long vowels are written. Additional diacritic markings for short vowels are usually included in learning material. The cursive, flowing letters of Arabic is one of it’s most alluring features, but can be a little more challenging that other alphabets/abjads. Letters change form based on its position in a word, and is written right to left. 
• Arabic shares with other Semitic languages the unique feature of roots and templates. Base meanings will be contained in a three or four consonant “root”, and then a template of vowels and additional consonants can be added to form into many grammatical functions. For example, the root K-T-B means “write”, and then can be formed into aKTuBu to mean “I write”. A good overview of examples can be found here.  
• Word order in MSA can be Verb-Subject-Object, or Subject-Verb-Object. In spoken varients, both VSO and SVO are present, but VSO is not as common in Classical and MSA. 
• Present tense “to be” is usually omitted, like in Russian.
• Verbs are conjugated for tense, person, gender, and number and use the same root and template form as mentioned above.
• Arabic has three noun cases : nominative, accusative, and genitive.