hii i'm taking an arabic class this fall and i'm pretty excited but i'm nervous because i've never learned a language with a new alphabet before!

has anyone ever learned a language with a different alphabet from english (japanese, chinese, russian, arabic, hebrew, thai, korean, etc) and do you have any advice? c: i bought a writing practise book to start learning a little over the summer so hopefully that helps!

Good luck! I want to learn Russian because I'm considering getting a Master's Degree in Russian History. What programs are you using? I would recommend Duolingo. It's similar to Rosetta Stone and it's free. You can practice online or if you have a smart phone

thanks for the advice! i'm not using any programs yet except for some youtube videos, i really wish i could use duolingo for arabic because my mom uses it for spanish and it's great, but unfortunately they don't have arabic on the app :( only arabic-to-english and you have to be quite advanced to do that

Hi Arabic is such a wonderful language! Hope you have fun and enjoy the challenge. For me, Korean and Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin and Hakka) were the languages we spoke at home, so I learned hangul, traditional and simplified Chinese at the same time. At school we learned Japanese, which was easy cause of the similarities in the languages I already knew. When I was learning English I found a language exchange buddy REALLY helpful and fun! I found someone looking to learn Korean in exchange for English. We'd practise about an hour each day monday - friday and we'd set each other tasks, such as 'Write down 10 food items in XXX language' then progressing onto 'Write a paragraph about your day' etc. I also had a huge alphabet and grammar chart on my wall and made it a habit to try and learn 10 new words a day.

Good luck with your studies! 8D

If you are thinking of learning Arabic, I'd highly suggest you go with the Egyptian or Lebanese dialect. They're pretty much considered the defacto standard dialect, and will be easier to get material and be understood. There are lotsssss of Arabic dialects worldwide. I live in the UAE, and Gulf Arabic is spoken here, which is a biatch to understand.

I see, thanks for the info! I think my class is going to be taught in the standard dialect