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hash
Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 456
Location: Wadi Jinn
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 Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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| RustyShackleford wrote: |
| ....Will look forward to eating my words down the line. |
And you will......big time..... and in ways and for reasons you can't even begin to imagine now.
The problem with learning Arabic in KSA/the Gulf is, as I said before, that it is not used in just about any commercial transaction that an ESL teacher (or other Westerner) is likely to encounter on a daily basis. Shopping, taxis, travel, friends, hospitals etc etc all use English. (By the way, there's no such thing as a "Saudi friend" despite vociferous disagreement to the contrary)
Even Saudis have to use English to transact just about any business particularly in the larger cities since they’d be dealing with the vast army of sub-continentals (Indians and Pakistanis) who run the businesses and speak only English (this is a slight exaggeration, but it's only slight).
How unlike, for example, Spain, which someone mentioned above.. There, you may work in an English environment, but the minute you step out of your workplace, it's all Spanish. You basically have to learn Spanish to survive. If male, chances are you will have a Spanish girlfriend, get to know her family, get invited to their home for Xmas and so on. When you go to transact some business, you will be expected to know Spanish because everyone you come in contact with will be speaking in Spanish. Your housing will be “on the market” so you’ll be surrounded by the locals who will become your neighbors. You’ll go out to movies, bars, dance halls and so on, all conducted in castellano. Want to take Spanish classes? No problem…..there’s likely to be a “Spanish Institute” catering to the foreigner on just about every block in the big cities. And so on.
(Most likely, this is similar to what goes on in Brazil where you said you learned fluent Portuguese in 6 months........perfectly believable, given the hospitable and welcoming environment there).
In other words, you could become quite fluent in Spanish in 6 months, even less if you’re in your early teens.
In the Gulf, and especially in KSA, nothing even remotely like this is going to happen. Worse, it would be impossible for it to happen. There’s a reason we Orientalists (that’s what I really am) have a saying: “Mozart stops at the Nile”. You’re going to enter a hostile, medieval world where all you have been taught to hold and cherish will have no significance and be of no value.
Most newbies to the Gulf are convinced that their experience will be “different” from everybody else’s, that what happened to others is not going to happen to them….that they’re somehow “special” and will be treated accordingly. If this is how you’re thinking, I assure you you’re kidding yourself. But good luck anyway. Looking forward to hearing from you in a couple of years after you’ve achieved fluency in Arabic. |
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ESL Wayfarer
Joined: 12 Apr 2015
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 6:37 am Post subject: |
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| vikramkr wrote: |
hash: I'm sorry, but I really don't think it's impossible to become fluent in Arabic in two years. Maybe I'm one of those "gifted" language learners. I learnt fluent Portuguese after six months in Brazil and have intermediate proficiency in French, Hindi, Turkish, and Urdu as well. I am experienced in teaching myself languages. |
Vikramkr,
Generally, bilingual speakers have the ability to learn new languages much quicker than speakers who have only ever acquired a single language (some Language Acquisition studies support this idea).
Hindi and Urdu bear a strong Arabic influence. There are loads of borrowed Arabic words that are still used in Modern Standard Hindi...and more so in Urdu.
If you can read Urdu this would be major boost, since the alphabet is the same( there are a few extra letters in Urdu for the sounds: /p/ /g/....
Therefore, I think you have good chance of learning Arabic if you go hard at it...Arabic has an insanely complex morphology....
And, you would totally be able to perfect your Hindi/Urdu in KSA...
All the best! |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 6:53 am Post subject: |
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Hindustani/Urdu is a lingua franca in large parts of the Middle East. So is English. Arabic too - but of the Bazaar Arabic variety. Not sure that Urdu/Hindi will be of much help in mastering Arabic. Different language families with totally different structures. Hindi is Indo-European and Arabic is Semitic.
A common alphabet is not much help. Turkish and Gaelic both use the Latin alphabet. That is about the end of the similarities !
Last edited by scot47 on Thu Aug 06, 2015 2:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 1:48 pm Post subject: |
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| ESL Wayfarer wrote: |
| Generally, bilingual speakers have the ability to learn new languages much quicker than speakers who have only ever acquired a single language (some Language Acquisition studies support this idea). |
I think you would be hard pressed to find a study that didn't support that idea for bilinguals.
The quibble may well be between what one self-designates as fluent. With hard work, one can certainly be communicatively competent for daily life, but it may take a few more years to be able to discuss philosophy or poetry. LOL
But I agree that the Gulf is really not a good place to try to learn Arabic... much better in North Africa or the Levant where you will use it more... or can use it more if you wish. I used my Arabic every day in Cairo, but almost never used it in the Gulf. There it was pretty much to make the students laugh at my Baladi Egyptian dialect.
VS |
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vikramkr
Joined: 02 Jul 2009
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 12:41 am Post subject: |
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| Thank you all very much for your insight, advice, and guidance! |
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