I know, I commented before that Arabic has a lot of extra stuff in it, but other times it can be really concise. Take the phrase, “We will send him…” for example. It takes four words in English and only one in Arabic. It’s done by adding suffixes and prefixes to the verb. The verb is conjugated properly of course, then we add what sounds like “n” at the beginning for “we”, and in front of that add a “s” sound at the beginning to denote the future tense. Object pronouns are actually suffixes, in this case a “who” sounding one. So the whole word sounds like snarselwho (
سنارسله)
from the verb arsel (
آرسل
). It’s an interesting system. The problem from my just starting to learn Arabic perspective is that it is difficult to pick out the verb sometimes because it is buried inside of these suffixes and prefixes. If I’m reading, I can figure it out, but when someone is speaking, it just sounds like a word I don’t know. By the time I realize what that verb is, the person has gone on to other stuff… I keep telling myself that it just takes time and if it wasn’t difficult I wouldn’t have come to Yemen to learn it… It’s just one more thing that shows how complicated the language is. I felt good about learning my conjugations and recognizing them, but then this stuff adds a whole new layer…
Isaac