My Arabic journey: why it’s been so difficult 

📲 The app I use to learn languages: tinyurl.com/nt3s2237 🆓 My 10 FREE secrets to language learning: tinyurl.com/5n6kyv2j ❓Are you learning Arabic? How has your experience been? Let me know in the comments!

Arabic so hard but SO worth it!

It's really therapeutic to see someone who's been studying languages for 50 years (?) talking about how he's struggling, especially with all the "How I learned Japanese in 4 months"-videos that keep appearing in my feed.

there is a saying regarding arabic farsi and turkish that goes " turkish starts easy and becomes hard, Farsi starts hard and becomes easy, and arabic starts hard and stays hard"

Hi! I also learn Arabic,However it’s extremely hard language for Japanese like me. It’s my goal to listen and talk with Arabic speakers. I’ll never give it up to learn Arabic 😄

شكراً للجهد الذي بذلته بتعلم اللغة العربية. اللغة العربية الفصحى أجمل من اللهجات المستعملة في بلدان الوطن العربي

دَبَبْتُ للمجدِ والساعون قد بلغوا جَهْدَ النفوس وألقَوا دونه الأُزُرا وكابدوا المجد حتى ملَّ أكثرُهم وعانقَ المجدَ مَن أوفى ومَن صَبَرا لا تحسَبِ المجدَ تمرًا أنتَ آكلُه لن تبلغَ المجد حتى تلعَق الصَّبِرا

أنا سعيد أنك وصلت في النهاية لتحقيق شيء، أتمنى أنك استمتعت بالرحلة!

As An arabic speaker I feel lucky alhamdulillah

Arabic has been kicking Steve's butt! It's interesting to see the language genius struggle and figure out how to work through it.

تحياتي ستيف، لديك عزيمة رائعة على تعلم اللغات رغم صعوبة بعضها، أتمنى لك التوفيق

This video has tons of information for students of any language. You identify problems, give examples, show solutions you have tried, and so on.

اللغة العربية ليست صعبة بل مثلها مثل جميع اللغات اذا حاولت سوف تتعلمها، تحياتي لكم من المغرب Good luck in your journey

Im glad you enjoy learning about Lebanon❤🇱🇧

انا من اليمن . اتكلم العربيه والانجليزيه بطلاقه وانا الان اتعلم اللغه الالمانيه لازلت اواجه بعض الصعوبات في تعلم اللغه الالمانيه عندما ارى فيديوهاتك اشعر بالتحفيز و النشاط اتمنى لك السعاده

I love seeing people learn my native language ❤ it’s HARD y’all but the fact that you’re doing it amazes me so much¡ good luck ❤

As a ex arabic teacher, a son of a arabic teacher and a grandson of historian arabic master and scholar I can only blame your proper circumstances and the way you discoverd and then blindly felt in love with arabic language reminding me the times when I first felt in love with Chinese language to discover that Chinese itself is divided in between mandarin and cantonese..... ...I read write and I speak 5 languages ( amazigh, arabic, french, spanish, english) i failed in learning chinese and I understand and can easily communicate with other 2 more (Italian and portugues) and the reader might be asking at this point why am I saying all this and that is because; for each language there's a circumstance situation and there's a story to tell like there's a tune for each dance or song ...making it short arabic language is like the same tune that has many different dances and what you are trying to do right now with all respect is learning how to become a choreographer in arabic instead of learning how to dance arabic... My advices to you: 1- stop cheating on arabic ( you're wasted too much time messing up with persian language) 2-you need to read and write arabic and you need to dominate the arabic vowels or (Harakat) 3-stay away from arabic dialects and only focus in the main classic arabic you find in literature books and stay away from egyptian movies and stay away from aljazera.... and lebanese language just like the moroccan language are not language but colloquial dualects that will not serve you in reading a book in arabic ( there are +400 million Arabs speaking arabic around the world but less than 25% of them know how to read or write arabic) 4-learn how to read and write arabic 5-read and write arabic 6-read and write arabic 7-read and write arabic 8-read and write arabic 9-read and write arabic 10-read and write arabic📚 P.s. New subscriber here and I appreciate and admire your heroism in fighting and defeating and going against all odds in learning Arabic I lost my fight against Chinese back in 2018 after 2 years of trying to self-teaching learning because of life circumstances .thanks and good luck

تحياتي لك استاذ ستيف كاوفمان من المملكة المغربية . Best grettings from Kingdom of Morocco from Casablanca.

arabic is not a sea it's an ocean, it's an endless amazing journey with various destinations to explore, it's just an undying love, hard and easy at the same time you will never ever get bord by using the same words because habibi you have over 12 million word at your service. arabic is the language of the future.👍

What you are doing is great, Steve. Keep going and don’t give up. Arabic is a beautiful language and deserves your effort. Greetings from Egypt❤

Thanks for your advice. I wish you good health, Steve.

i am a arabic native speaker nd i want to tell u that Your pronunciation is great أنت رائع🤍

Just what I needed. Thank you!

Thank you so much for this vid. I think you're amazing for learning Arabic, despite how difficult it can be. I'm *Lebanese* btw. And even though that's not our only language (we've spoken many throughout our long history in this beautiful eastern Mediterranean country), it is an important language today. More power to you!

An Arabic language learner from Michigan, and I have influences from Lebanese, Jordanians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Omanis, Moroccans, and Algerians, so the choice in dialect is hard to choose from because they're all so beautiful. Thank you for the video, Steve!

New subscriber from Morocco🇲🇦. Good luck in learning Arabic. I am also learning English😊.

Mr Kaufman you are a great man . Proud that some people still acknowledge the importance of this historical language , by the way i'm from Tunisia

Great to hear your Arabic update since we spoke together 3 years ago, Steve! Glad to see you're venturing into some dialects now. شدّ حيلك!

شكراً لك على هذا التحفيز الرائع ! أنت حقًا مذهل. اللغة العربية لغةٌ جميلة بالفعل ستستمع بها كثيراً وتحديداً عند قراءة الشعر والنثر. تحياتي لك وأتمنا لك التوفيق.

Great respect to you for continually challenging yourself, and taking on one of the "last bosses" of language.

I really do support you in your learning journey and I am happy to offer you free Arabic practice sessions.

Hi Steve you are an inspiration for me❤️ I am 64 yrs old Lebanese woman living in Australia I speak Arabic and English and have been learning Spanish on RU-vid for a short time, I’m loving it. You inspire me with your videos and all the languages you fluently speak. You are an awesome man and very intelligent. What was your favourite learning language? Keep practicing 👍😘🌹

You have right, Arabic is very difficult. Especially for someone who is trying to learn by himself. There is a huge difference between the official Arabic and the different dialects

إصرارك هذا قد حفزني لتعلم المزيد من اللغات. Your determination inspired me to learn more languages.

You are a great role model for all of us! Thank you!😊

أنت شخص ملهم لقد كسرت العوائق وأجتزتها لتعلم لغة العربية ورغم كبر سنك، إلا أنك كافحت و صابرت، أتمنى لك التوفيق والبركة في قراءة التفسير القرآن وفهو روح العربية.

تحياتي من ليبيا العربيه بالتوفيق

thanks for sharing. شكرا على مشاركة تجربتك في تعلم اللغة العربية

If Lord Steve struggles, Allah help me on my journey haha

Great video! Lots of inspiration for motivating yourself as a language learner.

Brother Steve, you're doing a great job. I greatly appreciate your approach and motivation.

The question mark represents a glottal sound in Arabic. Actually learning IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is quite helpful while learning pronunciation in different languages.

Thats great Steve! I have been learning Egyptian Arabic for almost 1 year. I have been using many sources to learn. One resource you might find useful is Al-Kitaab textbooks, which shows the Fusha, Shami, and Masri for vocabulary. Al-Kitaab also breaks down the grammar well and provides good exercises to apply the knowledge.

Love your enthusiasm old man keep it up 💯

Thankyou Steven. Thankyou for the good advice. The struggle will be rewarded. Never give up! You are a fascinating human being. Absolutely fantastic.

ممتاز! خليك اعمل هيك و ان شاء الله بتتعلمها مزبوط وبتيجي على الاردن كمان مرة وبنحكي مع بعض All the best, Samir from Jordan

When i wanted your videos i feel motivated to learn languages as more as possible, thanks from libya Arabia, شكرا

i love how determined you are good luck to you

يعطيك العافية Thank you for sharing your struggles with us, letting us know we're not alone! I laughed out loud while watching this video cuz I've encountered exactly the same issue. I'm a Mandarin native speaker and learned Fusha on and off at the university. The writing system and the grammar have always been fun for me, but I found the same obstacle as you did that most of the content online is in Fusha and isn't helpful for communicating with real people! So now I'm living in Jordan to learn the dialect after graduating from the university. I'm in love with the Jordanian/Palestinian dialect. It's soooo lovely. My favorite textbook is Al-Kitaab, published by Georgetown University. It includes Fusha, Levantine dialect(Syrian), and Egyptian dialect.

I totally understand, I struggle too, and for the exact same reasons ! It's not a language but a entire new world, we'll get it !

You are a constant inspiration for me in my language learning journey. Thank you.

Do your best, Steve!

I had a hard time with Arabic too. I had a relatively easy time with Turkish and Japanese which aren't even in the same family as English but Arabic has been really tough for me. Thanks for the video!

My advice for you is to focus on the standard Arabic or rather the fussa. It is the most elegant type of Arabic and you can communicate through it with all kinds of Arabic. With time after mastering the fussa you will be able to understand almost all kinds of Arabic . Trust me 👍🏻👍🏻 I am an Arabic

Mabrook! Congratulations on being awesome!

نُقدِرُ مَجهودك الذي بَذلتهُ في تَعلم اللغةِ العربية ، وَنتمنى لكَ رحلة يَسيرة ومُمتعة في التعلم لأنها لغة عَظيمة.

So disappointed in myself. To this day and for the rest of my life I will regret not learning Arabic after working in Saudi Arabia for 15 years. I have some minor excuses that just don't cut it. I did try, even did a 1 month intensive course in Cairo where I was confused the whole time between standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic.I took classes on our compound and briefly at a university. Every now and then I tell myself to give it another shot even at my age of almost 70. I can read it a bit and understand it a little bit when I hear certain words, phrases, etc. Why did I want to learn Arabic, because I so wanted and still want to learn a non European language, especially a non Romance language as I speak French, Spanish, Portuguese and I'm studying Italian and German. Unfortunately I'll continue to get this feeling from time to time for the rest of my life, that I should be speaking Arabic well. Interestingly, I now often run into lots of Arabic speakers here in the US where I live very close to Detroit, Michigan. Happily, I understood everything you said in Arabic Steve. Lastly, things have changed greatly in Saudi since I left it in 2006. Sometimes I think, had I gone to other Arabic speaking countries or to Saudi since the changes, I'd be speaking Arabic now. Sorry, it would take me too long to explain that. I haven't worked on Arabic since I left Saudi. The hurt I get is intense. Sometimes I think to give Swahili a shot; supposedly it has a lot of Arabic in it. I started learning languages at 25 after a backpacking trip to Europe / Central Asia and being surrounded by multilingual people. I started with French as I thought it would help me some day in visiting Africa. Then I kept going. Learning languages and about different cultures became my passion. I got a degree in Teaching English as a second Language and l lived abroad, I'm American USA, for 25 years in a few countries Travel and languages changed my life drastically. I should have started young.

رحلة عربية موفقة تحياتي لك من مصر 🇪🇬

Great video! Someday I think of start to learn this beautiful language...

That’s why i’m so grateful for being an Arabic native speaker so i don’t have to learn it from scratch as a foreigner 😭, KEEP GOING ALPHA LANGUAGES LEARNER

I wonder Steve, if your teachers mentioned that there's what's informally called Middle Arabic. It's something between fusha standard Arabic and dialect /colloquial. This is easier to learn as it does away with harakat, albeit, only at the end of words, which is a great bonus even for native Arabic speakers who struggle at times with grammar. This middle language is actually works as a lingua franca among Arabs of different dialects. This what overall you hear on TV and online discussions. Let me give you some examples: with harakat, and without harakat: ْأُريدُ أنْ أتَعَلَّمَ اللُّغةَ العربيةَ .. اريد اتعلَّمْ اللُّغهْ العربيه I wanna learn Arabic سأكُونُ سَعِيدأً أنْ أتَعَلَّمَ لُغاتٍ عَديدَةٍ .. راحْ/ سَأكونْ سَعيدْ انْ اتْعَلَّمْ لُغاتْ عَديدَهْ I'd be happy to learn many languages أنا أعْتَقِدُ أنَّ عَلَيْكَ أن تُرَكِّزَ على المُحادَثةِ لا عَلى قُواعدَ النَّحوِِ .. انا اعْتَقِدْ عَليكْ ان تْرَكِّز على المُحادَثهْ لا على قواعد النَّحو I think you'd have to focus on conversational Arabic and not on grammar As you can see in these examples, there is no harakat on the end of words, just like in Persian. Secondly, the two styles are similar. With the middle language everybody will understand you without the need for following strict grammar rules. Then gradually you'll develop grammatical skills over time. The good thing is in Arabic unlike English for instance, there's a degree of flexibility in using the harakat which are equivalent to vowels in English. For example, you can say Sama'tu instead of Sami'tu (to hear) or Areedu instead of Ureedu (to want) or Araftu instead of Ariftu (to know) and so on. Strictly speaking, the correct haraka should be used, but hey , no big deal , even Arabs themselves make these mistakes. In Eng you can't say Geve instead of Give or wint instead of went, or worse , bitch instead of batch ! In Arabic, you can, in comparison!! Finally, I should say learning Egyptian or Levantine Arabic is not the right way. Middle lang is. Hope that helps.

I respect your honesty sir !

You r very great man, i bet everyone around you so proud of you

أنت حقا رائع حقا اللغة العربية صعبة و لكنك تعلمتها ما شاء الله

من الرائع ان اجد من يحب اللغه العربيه . اتمنى ان استطيع مساعدتك.

Hey, Steve. Your videos are a magical journey in search of the Wizard of Oz. They inspire and help all those who are also on this road. Thanks a lot.

Learning Levantine, goes to practice in Morocco. Good luck with that bro. I'm learning Portuguese so I went to Mexico...

انا جدا فخور لأن العربية هي لغتي الام ، اتحدث بطلاقة وبكل لهجات الدول العربية 🇩🇿

This is bang on. Thank you.

Many thanks for your motivation

Its the most beautiful language to ever exist imho. So totally worth the struggle

Keep in mind, the basic Arabic language is Classical Arabic, then dialects begin to appear. The Egyptian dialect is completely different from the Saudi dialect, for example, and the Emirati and Jordanian dialects, and so on the rest of the Arab countries. What you hear in Egyptian films will never be clear in Emirati films, etc. If you want to read all Arabic resources, including news and books, focus on classical Arabic only, because all these countries understand it well.

Oh Steve, I am really happy you posted this. This was such a good video. I’m learning Persian (among other languages) and it’s really motivating to see you learning it too. I tried to experiment with Arabic last month, just to get a taste of it and I was quickly humbled by how difficult even trying a little bit was. But I know if you can do it, I can figure it out too. So U am rooting for you!!!!!

I advise you to read a book (الاعجاز اللغوي في القرآن الكريم) It will make you love the Arabic language more

This is making me glad I picked Japanese, lol. Arabic was on my short list, along with Russian. I guess I like harder-to-learn languages...

As a Pakistani, I found Arabic extremely easy to learn.

Thank you for openly sharing your struggles! As a fellow non-native Arabic speaker, I know that many of the things you outlined are things a lot of us struggle with when we're first introduced to arabic in various classroom formats. If I could offer a suggestion though, I think it would be valuable to expand on what you're sharing here in the form of a larger conversation around table amongst different Arabic learners, both native and non-native. My main concern in what you're expressing is that it really emphasizes the challenges of studying arabic instead of the long-term rewards and beauty of forming a relationship with this language and many variants. Yes, it's true that Arabic learning presents a lot of challenges, but I wouldn't want people to feel discouraged from exploring this language because it's been labeled as a "difficult language". I don't want to in any way imply that I'm devaluing your experience, I'm certainly not, I just also want to emphasize that there are so many of us out here who have found a lot of success and joy and cultivated a lot of knowledge about resources for learning this beautiful language.

Great video Steve. I've never learnt Arabic or any of the related languages, but capturing your experiences to date in this video will surely aid other learners navigate through their challenges. 👍

If you haven't seen it already, there's an intresting video entitled "How to acquire any language NOT learn it!" by Poly-glot-a-lot that has had 4.1M views. Starting from zero, Jeff Brown becomes fluent in Arabic in a year. As the title suggests, it's worth watching for learners of any language. He's in the Stephen Krashen / compreshensible input school.

I think a good way to learn Arabic vocabulary and İslamic culture is to read Hadeeth (The sayings Of Prophet Muhammed peace be upon him) Books. They are generally the size of a paragraph and in a Hadeeth Books they may have thousands of them. Some books have a hadith And than its translation under it. So you have a paragraph and the meaning of the words just like LingQ. Also the fact that they divide it into different topics is helpful. Like there is a topic and 100 paragraphs about that topic. And it is easy to learn the vocabulary about that topic. I Especially advice you to read "Sahih Al Bukhari"

شكرا لك علي هذا المجهود

رائع جدا وجميل.. لديك اصرار و صبر فريدان من نوعهم وجهك منير بالطيبة والعزيمة حظاً موفقاً يا عمي، أتمنى لك التوفيق. تحياتي لك من دبي

After some conversations with Muslims, asking them about some things in the Koran and the Hadith traditions, I found that the go-to answer to challenging questions was to say that you cannot really understand the texts unless you speak Arabic. I heard that from at least three different Muslims. So, I decided to try to learn the language. This effort lasted about 10 days, which is lame even for me.

Arabic reminds me a lot of hebrew which I speak. I want to learn arabic so I can communicate with the arabs in my hometown city of Jerusalem/Al-Quds

I taught Arabic to a doctor for one year, in private lessons, in a language school in Belgium. First, a lot of fluency activities and a lot of practice. We delved into grammar later on. He was a great learner!

Steve,, I wrote a comment on my failure to learn Arabic despite living in Saudi Arabia. I've been thinking about Arabic since then and I remembered a class I'd heard about. You might want to check out Middlebury Language classes which are very intensive and of course they offer Arabic. The classes are not cheap but many attest to their quality. That said, I imagine you've already heard of these classes. Good luck, love your blog.

Its alright steve, i am sure you tried your best

Does learning a language later in life make a difference ? No offense. Love you Steve!...you're awesome!❤

Good advice @steve and I am actually doing what you suggested regards changing the plan to ensure the passion is still there. I had one teacher who would speak perhaps 75% of the time which was brilliant for my listening skills but very bad to enable me to speak so I changed teachers where I found a teacher who lets me drive the lesson which is refreshing. I watch RU-vid videos which I enjoy and of course we all use Al Jazeera in our learning. Arabic I find definitely requires time dedicated to reading, listening and speaking daily. I write WhatsApp messages in Arabic to all my Arab speaking contacts so variety is very important

I commend your motivation, sir!

Arabic script is easier than English. Yes it is. Look at this: A a أ In Eng you draw 3 lines to write A while in Arabic just one straight line أ ا B b ب To write B b you draw 1 or 2 half circles and a line, while in Arabic all you need to write b is draw a dish or a canoe :) ! same thing with most of the letters. D d د G g ج N n ن

Thank you! It's so motivating to see how are you overcoming those obstacles❤ Keep going, you are making a lot of progress on the understanding!🎉

It is amazing how well you've picked up the language. I am a native arabic speaker and have recently been picking up Spanish. I appreciate the struggle, although learning Arabic is such a harder task.. much respect.

عافية عليك. ممتاز. الله يقويك.

Hi Kaufmann, This video is very much motivating than any video I see in youTube because I am also facing the same that you are facing. I know 5 languages including English and I am fluent in that language but this Arabic alone is very difficult for me to learn because I have already done 25 years research into the language, studied in dedicated classes in my locality and also moved to Arabic country and stayed there, observing what they are doing but still I can't learn them mainly because of the obstacles you posted especially different regional dialects and need to do without harakah reading. But sill I am continuing to explore the language especially through Quran and this video is very much motivational and thank you for it. God bless you.

One of my best ways of learning is reading, so I've struggled with the Arabic alphabet. It's still on my list of languages to learn, but I'm focused on others for right now and don't want to overload myself. I am glad I learned Chinese last year, and I'm working on Korean now, so I know a bit better about learning a new writing system than I did before I tackled those, so hopefully that helps next time I try to learn Arabic.

Great suggestions! I studied Arabic in University decades ago, after 3 years I could read and understand a lot but my speaking in either Levantine or Egyptian was poor, so now I need to start over with dialect but luckily I can still remember the reading. It seems easier to find good learning content online in many other languages...

Thanks Mrs steve , your video has motivated me to compete my study for German language

Really like seeing your data progression at 4:00 you should show it for more things!

Keep it up brother