Can I learn Arabic in 3 Months & The Great Marcus Story in Damascus?
Can I learn Arabic in one month? Or after 3 months?
How long does it take to learn Arabic?
. How long does it take to be fluent in the Arabic language?
In this article:
1. I will answer this question based on my 15 years of experience teaching students from all over the world.
2. I will also mention to you the great story of Marcus, the student who learned Arabic in one month in Damascus in 2008.
3. Finally, I will give you a step-by-step blueprint on how you can reach fluency in Arabic within 6 months only.
The Arabic language is more complex and different from other languages. It has a completely different system of writing than other foreign languages and the sounds of the letters going to be very alien to you if you never heard Arabic.
I see a lot of online Arabic language sites and other bloggers like fuentsin3months.com saying that you can learn Arabic in 3 months; it is a great way for marketing as his site is called fluentin3months. No wonder why he says you can learn any language in 3 months.
My personal opinion:
Arabic is Not One Language; it is Two Languages.
Unlike other foreign languages, the Arabic we speak is not the Arabic we read. As you may already know from my other blogs, we can divide Arabic into two main parts: Classical Arabic and Colloquial Arabic. To learn Modern Standard Arabic, it will take you over 4 years to become fluent in it. Classical Arabic is like an ocean, the more you immerse yourself in this language, the more you realize that there is a lot to learn. While spoken Arabic is much easier to learn as it has been simplified and created so that people can easily communicate in Arabic. In my experience, you can speak Arabic dialects like (Syrian Arabic) fluently in 6 months if you follow the system that I will cover later in this article.
Lack of Good Arabic Materials and Recourses.
Another failure in learning Arabic is the lack of good materials and textbooks. If you have studied Arabic before, you will have come across Al-kital one, two and three, as well as Mastering Arabic one and two. These are the only books available on the market for foreign students to learn Arabic. Even all major UK and US universities like Yale, Oxford, Cambridge and SOAS use these books to teach classical Arabic to their students. These books contain old texts and vocabulary that are boring to learn and useless to use, along with a heavy emphasis on grammar and meaningless exercises.
Commitment, Focus and Time.
If you studied Arabic every day for 8 hours as self-study and two hours with a good private tutor, then it is possible to reach an advanced level in the Arabic language in 3 months. Of course, it requires you to be very disciplined, committed and probably gifted with languages and have time to focus on learning Arabic, which is quite difficult to achieve.
But, of course, there are some exceptions to this theory, like the great Marcus who surely learned Arabic in one month, but how did he do it? Let me start from the very beginning of this story:
It was the summer of 2008 when an American Yale student named Marcus approached me in the old city of Damascus at the Imarariia street bookstore and asked me to teach him Arabic; the conversation goes like this:
Marcus: Hi Khaled, I want to learn Arabic.
Khaled: Tamam! What is your level of Arabic?
Marcus: I am a complete beginner and I know the Arabic alphabet and how to read basic words and simple sentences in Arabic.
Khaled: No problem, how long do you plan to study Arabic in Damascus?
Marcus: I only have one month here and I want to make the most of it.
Khaled: Cool! What result do you want to get in one month of Learning Arabic?
Marcus: I want to be fluent in Arabic.
Khaled: what? it is impossible! You can’t achieve fluency in the Arabic language in one month. Arabic is a very difficult language and it will take you at least two months to have basic speaking skills and a good reading level and from six months to a year to reach fluency if you study hard.
Marcus: I have an idea for you, Khaled.
Khaled: what’s the idea?
Marcus: I am a very motivated and disciplined student and I think I can speak Arabic fluently for a month if I study with you every day.
Khaled: Maybe, but even if we study every day for two hours, I don’t think you will speak Arabic fluently in a month, you will reach an intermediate level maybe, that’s what I promise you.
Marcus: What if we study Arabic every day for 8 hours?
Khaled: what? it won’t work, you won’t have time to memorize Arabic words or fully understand the grammar.
Marcus: Can you try me, please?
Khaled: You seem to be a very determined and self-confident student, so I like that! This is going to be a very challenging mission, but I like a challenge and I want to try it and see what happens.
Marcus: Thank you very much, Can I suggest something?
Khaled: Go ahead?
Marcus: Can I live with you?
Khaled: Live with me? What do you mean?
Marcus: If we’re going to take 8 hours of Arabic lessons every day, it’s better to move in with you. It would be more useful for me since I can practice with you at night.
Khaled: hmm, you’re right! It’s not a bad idea if we’re going to go do it daily and for 8 hours, we’re going all the way. We agreed!
Marcus: Great!
We sat at a table in the Courtyard under a lemon tree and next to the fountain. Marcus had a box of 1000 cards and we started reading them one by one. After we finished, Marcus told me to test him, which I did. To my surprise, Marcus could remember all the words I asked for from the box of 1000 cards. I was shocked. This person is not normal. His Memory was much faster than my laptop at the time. Then I realized Marcus has a photographic memory. He reads the text once and remembers everything, including where the comma and period were in the text. He was full of energy and very focused. He is not only a genius but also a very constant and hardworking student. So, I knew that in a month he would be free to speak and that he could do it.
We follow the program for 8 hours, then we went to dinner in the evening in the old town and he practised what he learned with me. Gradually Marcus learned to speak Arabic in the first two weeks, and by the end of the month, he was reading the Quran to me. I will never forget this person. Since then, I have met no one like him.
How can you Speak Arabic (Syrian Arabic) in 6 months?
In my experience, in 6 months one can become fluent in Arabic, but only in spoken Arabic such as Syrian Arabic, and Lebanese dialects).
Here is what you need.
. 2 hours of private lessons per day.
. 4 hours of self-study.
. 30 minutes of listening to audio lessons, podcasts and watching TV every day.
. 30 minutes of reading every day.
. 10-15 new words every day.
. Focus, be consistent and never give up no matter what.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article.
Khaled Nassra
. If you really want to learn Levantine Arabic in 6 months, book your Free Consultation here to see if my method works for you.
. Subscribe to Nassra Arabic Platform 2022 here.
. For a good book to learn Lebanese/Syrian Arabic, check my book on Amazon.
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