Learning Arabic Grammar- What Beginners Must Know

Learning Arabic Grammar: what beginners must know

Every student of Arabic goes first through the process of mastering the Alphabet. Once this step is done with it tricky letters and pronunciation hurdles, one feels empowered by a new ability to read every word in Arabic and ready to take on next challenges. This motivation however, often dwindles down in an alarming pattern when students begin learning Arabic Grammar. While many reasons can cause such a tendency, one of the often mentioned causes is the difficulty of Arabic grammar. However, a closer look at this situation reveals that often times students were not ready to learn the Arabic grammar because they did not have the proper introduction as to what to expect or what to look for or target. Of course, students normally have a syllabus that guides them, but what is meant here, and what i hope to explain the following paragraphs, is not to provide the students the titles of the lessons introduced at a specific points in the class, but rather a global perspective of what the students should expect and what they should look for and most importantly why are they learning Arabic grammar just now. 

Once the student has mastered the alphabet, the next step should be to focus on what should allow him/her to interact in that language. Communication here, as one of the Standards for foreign language learning, has to be implemented in the classroom. This necessity means that the student will have to begin learning Arabic grammar concepts such as question formation, Gender, subject pronouns, plurals, possessives, and of course adjectives, etc. While this necessity makes total sense to the instructor of Arabic, the choice and chronology of such grammar lessons remain cryptic for students and the question: why are we learning this now? comes to mind. Even if students convince themselves that this choice must not have been arbitrary, students often ask: how important is this grammar rule to my Arabic learning, am I going to remember this in 5 years from now? While we all know and agree that these are the basics, it is very important to let students know that we are doing this as part of a bigger project and that this project consists of giving you the tools to interact and communicate. It is also very important to stress the fact that these rules will follow you for your entire Arabic learning career. Which means that these are the basis of everything you will learn and that as every foundation, it should be a solid one.

As part of the overall perspective students should have when learning Arabic grammar is the fact that it is extremely beneficial to learn only one tense, which is enough to get you to create sentences. The tense which should be introduced first is the present (‘al muDaara`), as this allows the student to express oneself (communicate) about the immediate environment and about actions that are happening. While students rarely question this choice, many seem to get confused between what the plural endings or noun-adjective agreements should be and the actual conjugation. For that reason, the student should make a clear distinction between these grammar endings and the actual conjugation of verbs. Once that distinction is made, what remains is the fact that now the student has to focus on these two sides at the same time: proper conjugation of verbs along with a clear understanding of the grammatical concepts enumerated earlier is what will allow you to make sentences in Arabic. A continued double-pronged focus is what should be emphasized and remembered here.

The last two paragraphs described what a student learning Arabic 101 should focus on. It is normal that at this level a student's qualifications be within the novice-low and the novice-high brackets. At this stage students mistakes revolve around making conjugation mistakes (confusing subject pronouns or adding prefixes that are already in the muDaara` verb), spelling mistakes (which require a review of their alphabet), along with mistakes related to a confusion of grammar rules related to gender, nouns, adjectives, and plural agreements. So if you are learning Arabic grammar and making these kinds of mistakes, then you should know that you are making typical mistakes an Arabic 001 student should make and learn to avoid progressively. In other words you should check that you are making these mistakes as that entails that you are aware of them. The good news is that these are easy to isolate and address with your instructor. And remember that learning Arabic grammar as a novice is a foundation that will have repercussions throughout your learning experience of the Arabic language.