The Challenges of Learning Arabic for Kids

Adults and children face challenges in learning a new language, while the challenges of learning Arabic online for children may be accompanied by feelings of frustration, laziness, or avoidance and a feeling of fatigue and stress, especially in the writing stage, but what about difficulties in reading and grammar? To know the common challenges that your child may encounter while learning Arabic language lessons, we advise you to read the article until the end.

What are the Challenges of Learning Arabic for Children?

Writing Challenges

Writing is an acquired skill and a mental activity based on thinking. To produce a written text, a child needs a lot of effort, because writing requires written expression, spelling, and handwriting. First of all, the child must get used to writing letters from right to left, and numbers from left to right. It may be confusing at the beginning of learning, but with practice they can master it perfectly. The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters, and the shapes of these letters change according to their position in the word. Its beginning, middle or end. The reading of numbers also differs. In English, we begin by reading the tens first and then the units  second, as in the number 35 (Thirty five). While in Arabic, we start reading from the units to the tens (five, then thirty).

The challenges of learning Arabic related to writing are:

• Recognizing the different shapes of letters.

• Confusing similar letters, such as Ghen (ـغـ) and Fa (ـفـ).

• Deleting some letters, such as missing the letter Alef (أ) and writing Omar (عُمر) instead of Amer (عامر).

• Adding some letters to Madd, such as: in the name "Samir" writing it as (سامير) instead of (سمير).

• Neglecting to put dots on letters.

• Writing in a straight line.

• Writing the letters incorrectly.

Phonetic Challenges (Pronunciation)

The difficulty of pronouncing some sounds in Arabic varies depending on the learner's first language. For example, the letter (Kha - خ) does not exist in English, but it exists in Spanish. According to psychologists, is that babies when they are born can hear and differentiate all the subtilities of letter pronunciation, intonation, rhythm, etc. of all languages. Essentially, they could learn to speak natively any language.

The challenges of learning Arabic related to pronunciation are:

• Moving smoothly from one sound to another.

• Making sounds by moving the lips or tongue.

• Using Shadda inappropriately.

• Pausing between syllables.

• Substituting one sound for another sound.

Grammatical Challenges

Perhaps the most difficult challenges facing those wishing to learn a new language, especially Arabic, is grammar. When talking about the rules of Arabic, it is like a sea not bounded by land or shore. There are nominal sentences, verbal sentences, phrasal verbs, numerous verb conjugations, different styles, inflections, and much more. The verbs in Arabic are divided according to the time of occurrence of the verb into three types: the past tense, the present tense, and the imperative verb. For example:

• In the past tense, we say: I ate, you ate, she ate, he ate, they ate, we ate.

• In the present tense, we say: I eat, you eat, she eats, he eats, they eat, we eat.

• In the imperative tense, we say: Eat!

Things may seem difficult, but Arabic grammar is based on very precise and regular rules, and with the basic conjugation patterns memorized, most verbs are easy to conjugate automatically.

The challenges of learning Arabic related to grammar are:

• Mismatch in the definition, such as: "رأيتٌ القطة بيضاء", instead of "رأيتُ القطة البيضاء".

• Mismatch in the indefiniteness, such as: "شربتُ الشاي ساخن", instead of "شربتُ شايًا ساخنًا".

• Putting the object before the subject, such as: "an apple Khaled ate" instead of "Khaled ate an apple".

There are challenges in learning Arabic that we must overcome. There is no joy in success and excellence without work, effort, and perseverance. We did not list the challenges of learning Arabic above, except with the aim of identifying some of the obstacles that your child may encounter during the process of learning Arabic language. By analyzing and knowing the challenges, solutions can be found.

Having a native and skilled Arabic teacher for kids can be one of the most effective ways for a successful learning Arabic journey. eArabic, an online platform, is specially made to meet your child's needs. With our fun engaging teaching methods, your children will enjoy learning Arabic. As we all know, children love games, songs, and stories and that’s what we focus on in our courses. With our professional and certified Arabic tutors, your children will learn Arabic effectively in a way they can never forget. Book a free Arabic lesson now!