My experience learning Arabic, Persian and Turkish: tips and pitfalls

[@Thelinguist]

📲 The app I use to learn languages: tinyurl.com/yeyhth2j 🆓 My 10 FREE secrets to language learning: tinyurl.com/2jmm3ykw ❓Have you tried learning any of these languages? What has your experience been like? Let me know in the comments!

[@PimsleurTurkishLessons]

Türkiye is in center of world. Turkish is not a middle eastern language.

[@PimsleurTurkishLessons]

Linguists' opinions on Turkish Grammar Prof. David Cuthell : “I know many foreign languages. Among these languages, Turkish is such a different language that it is as if a hundred high mathematics professors came together to make Turkish. A dozen words are produced from one root. Turkish is such a language that it is a language of emotion, thought, logic and philosophy in itself.” Paul Roux: "Turkish is a mathematical language full of thought and intellect." *Moliere: "Turkish is language to be admired; you can express a great deal by a few words." *French Turcologist Jean Deny : "The Turkish language suggests that it was formed as a result of the consultation and discussion of an elite committee of scholars. Turkish verbs have such a peculiarity that they cannot be found in any of the Arian languages. This feature is the power to form new words with affixes”. Jean Deny *Herbert W. Duda:“Turkish, which expresses all thoughts and feelings in the most perfect way, has such a rich vocabulary that everyone admires this language and accepts it as the most perfect scientific language.'”. *Herbert Jansky: “Turkish language is an extremely rich and easy-to-understand, easy-to-learn scientific language in terms of vocabulary, phonetics, orthography, syntax and vocabulary.” Prof. Dr. Johan Vandewalle;, now I have learned about 50 languages ​​. After learning languages ​​with very different systems, the language that I still admire the most, the language that I find most logical and mathematical is Turkish.” Receiving the Babylonian World Award, Belgium's Ghent University Center for Eastern Languages and Cultures, Dr. Johann Van De Walle explains why he is interested in Turkish today: “Turkish can be learned in a very short time. The rules in chess are logical, simple and few in number. Even a seven-year-old can learn to play chess. Despite this convenience, the person playing chess does not get bored throughout his life. The game possibilities are endless. It is a very magical feature that the same situation exists in the Turkish grammar system. Turkish grammar is a language that has a regular and unexceptional character almost as much as mathematics. johan Vandewalle (The text is written by him. It is written by him in Turkish.) “… I think that a native Turkish speaker thinks in short sentences, and when speaking, he builds complex structures by connecting these short sentences in various ways. This "tendency to connect sentences" can be weak in some speakers, and strong in others, almost to the extent of a disease. The linguistic structures that emerged in this last situation reflect the superior possibilities of the human mind in the best way. Although I have studied many languages ​​belonging to different language groups, I can say that I have never come across a structure that fascinates me as much as complex sentence structures in Turkish. If you let me be a little sentimental, I sometimes say to myself, “I wish Chomsky had learned Turkish when he was younger too…”. I'm sure then modern linguistics would have been shaped according to Turkish, not English…”

[@PimsleurTurkishLessons]

page 257 in book (The Science of Language by Max Müller in 1861) It is a real pleasure to read a Turkish grammar, even though one may have no wish to acquire it practically. The ingenious manner in which the numerous grammatical forms are brought out, the regularity which pervades the system of declension and conjugation, the transparency and intelligibility of the whole structure, must strike all who have a sense of that wonderful power of the human mind which has displayed itself in language. Given so small a number of graphic and demonstrative roots as would hardly suffice to express the commonest wants of human beings, to produce an instrument that shall render the faintest shades of feeling and thought;-given a vague infinitive or a stern imperative, to derive from it such moods as an optative or subjunctive, and tenses as an aorist or paulo-post future;-given incoherent utterances, to arrange them into a system where all is uniform and regular, all combined and harmonious;-such is the work of the human mind which we see realized in “language.” But in most languages nothing of this early process remains visible. They stand before us like solid rocks, and the microscope of the philologist alone can reveal the remains of organic life with which they are built up. In the grammar of the Turkic languages, on the contrary, we have before us a language of perfectly transparent structure, and a grammar the inner workings of which we can study, as if watching the building of cells in a crystal bee-hive. An eminent orientalist remarked “we might imagine Turkish to be the result of the deliberations of some eminent society of learned men;” but no such society could have devised what the mind of man produced, left to itself in the steppes, and guided only by its innate laws, or by an instinctive power as wonderful as any within the realm of nature.

[@Sherman350]

Mr. Steve - One a ur techniques seems to be to git urself a hot female tutor (seen u talking with a hot turkish tutor female, seen u wit nelly avec french, now this farsi lady). Can u speak on that in one a yo videos and would u recommend that les eleves de l'apprentissage des langues git theyselves some hot tutor chicks to spice up they apprentissage des langues? Des femmes chaudes . Some might even say that the area a the brain that be dealing with langue learning is the same area a the brain dont s'agit le sexy time talkin wit the ladies. Danke schon pour tes conseils. Du bist der starkste und der ehrlichsten sur youtube en ce qui concerne l'apprentissage des langues, dont je suis tres reconnaissant

[@MGMclips]

@@PimsleurTurkishLessons YOU KNOW The earth is spherical right?

[@zahraahassan8236]

thank you steve. I am an arab and currently learning persian. your videos about arabic and persian motivates me. wish you enjoyable journey with these two languages.

[@Familyproud-e9h]

Interesting! What motivated you to learn Persian? I've learnt Arabic at school in Iran and although I'm unable to speak, I know loads of words, their roots and derivatives and a great deal of grammar. Good luck with your language learning journey ❤

[@lambert801]

Good luck from Iran 💚

[@алиреза123]

Glad to see your comment

[@user-fp6hi2gm4s]

خوشحالم که داری تلاش می کنی فارسی یاد بگیری دوست عزیز ، پیروز و مانا باشی❤👌🫂

[@saeeddookat2330]

​@@Familyproud-e9hآني إيراني اقولك لا تتعلم لغة فارسي روووح اتعلم لغة صيني هامه لنا يا عزيزى 😂

[@ZahraYM]

In Iran, we studied Arabic at school for seven years, but we cannot speak a word of Arabic or understand when two Arabs are speaking Arabic. This is not just your problem, the Arabic language is too difficult. Even though we have the same alphabet and we didn't need to learn the alphabet, it's still hard.

[@deepolo]

Yes same experience I had to study Arabic from elementary school till the end of middle school, I can't read it and right it well enough but the comprehension and vocabulary isn't there

[@benviolo]

You were learning standard arabic btw which is used in news , cartoons, paragraphs , religion , etc plus there are different dialects which is pretty different from standard arabic

[@lWubaLubaDUBDUBl]

first of all we study mostly grammar and second the problem is about education system cause we study 7 years of English too and we have to study on our own to learn English.

[@meysamgholamhoseiny]

It's not because of Arabic it is because they learn, i used to had a arab classmate who was very bad in Arabic one time i ask him why and he said a speak arabic fluently but can't understand this shit

[@HatredForMankind]

Trying to learn Arabic, Persian and Turkish simultaneously is basically trying to learn three different languages from *three entirely different language families* .

[@maciek8159]

I've only been learning Italian for over a year but learning three different languages at once just doesn't seem realistic. Then again I'm totally new to this and he's learned over 20 languages so maybe that isn't too High of an expectation.

[@mstkli222]

and languages of entirely different people

[@noamto]

Why basically?

[@onhisbike4592]

@@noamtocause it is very similar to trying to learn romanian and english at the same time thinking both of them in Europe. Persian belongs to Indo European language family arabic belongs to central semitic and Turkish belongs to Turkic

[@sara_s_]

I was thinking the same thing

[@ZoePerrault]

Persian is very easy to learn if you just want to be able to conduct daily informal conversations. It’s easy because it has nothing to do with gender or complicated verb forms. It has only adopted Arabic Alphabet but it is an Indo-European language way different from Arabic and Turkish. Arabic is from another category of languages, Turkish too.

[@kipkiphoera]

Thank you for sharing clips of you struggling to speak the language. It shows two realities of language learning that are sometimes ignored. 1) Achieving fluency is a really hard goal. An initial dose of beginner's motivation will not get you there. It takes years of honing your language skills and finding other deeper reasons and motivation to continue this practice to really achieve fluency. 2) Achieving fluency is not the only worthwhile goal in language learning. There is value in every stage. Knowing the writing system will make your trip to the country much more meaningful. Speaking some of the language will help you connect with people on a deeper level. Learning about the history will help you understand the culture and see the connections with other cultures. There is definitely a lot of value in knowing some of the language.

[@VICEJAX]

happy to see you learning Persian Steve! Iran and its language both are amazing they deserve more than what they're getting because of media and leaders

[@Mahan-v2z]

The best thing about being in a iran Turkish city is that you know Turkish and Persia as your mother tongue and you learn English and Arabic at high school

[@YETER864]

What city is this?

[@hoomantheprofessional3268]

@@YETER864 i think he might live in tabriz or cities close to that region

[@aliabolfathi4961]

it's a state in iran called Azerbaijan that has many twons. They speak Azari which is very similar to Turkish thats why by a bit practice or Turkish Tv shows they learn how to speak Turkish aswell. So basically they speaking Azari, Turkish, Persian and they learn Arabic and English at school.​@YETER864

[@NateRiver-h4p]

Listening to you while speaking Turkish is very nice. Greetings from Türkiye 😊 (Seni Türkçe konuşurken dinlemek çok hoş. Türkiye'den selamlar)

[@Essan7]

Steve, you are awesome! Another very big mistake people make when learning the script, is learning lots of letters at once, thereby always consuming the similar ones with each other - imagine learning b, d, p, q all together, which look very similar and are just right or left or up and down reflections of one another. The best way is to learn maybe three or four different looking letters at first, practice plenty with them, and then learn a new letter every two or three days. That way you learn all the letters in a couple months, but won’t mix them up and get confused. 😊🙏🏼

[@kemmit8935]

Hi Steve, You inspire us by learning different languages. Turkish language loaned a variety of words from Arabic and Persian during the Ottoman Empire. Learning Arabic and Persian will help you to understand words. But on the other hand, Turkish language is a Central Asian language. Structure is smiliar to Hungarian, Finnish and Japanese. In the light of aforementioned information, you can learn Turkish, Japanese and Hungarian at the same time. If you learn Turkey's Turkish, it will help you to learn other Turkish dialects such as Kazakh, Uzbek, Krygyz, Turkmen and Uighur. Azerbayjani Turkish is very smiliar to Turkey's Turkish. Turkish is a little bit difficult for English speaking person. Good news, Turkish has logical and mathematic structure. Good luck. Başarılar dilerim.

[@davidbrenton4468]

Simultaneously learning Turkish, Persian and Arabic is a fabulously ambitious idea. I thought immediately of Ottoman Turkish and its variation of the Arabic alphabet. I tried this myself; I won't say I was very successful, but pursuing the loan words, borrowings and correspondences among these languages is fascinating. See V. H. Hagopian's 'Ottoman-Turkish Conversation-Grammar' if this interests you, it comes with a key to the exercises and was published in 1907.

[@seenonyt2210]

Thank you for the reference! That's special.

[@davidbrenton4468]

@@seenonyt2210 This volume is available (free) on Google Books. A sort of linguistic time machine. Do have a look at it, it's a world from yesteryear.

[@filozofmessi]

The Ottoman language was formed entirely in line with the understanding of art. Persian and Arabic were considered superior languages, and Turkish poets competed to see who could use Persian more. Then the Ottoman language was born

[@Trevie3]

I love the editing on your newer videos, very enjoyable content. You are my language hero Mr. Kaufmann!

[@yakamoz1108]

Açıkıladığınız için çok teşekkür ederim. Steve bey, siz tüm dünyadki dilleri derin derin araştılıyorsunuz. Ben aslında Japonum ama sizi çok merak ediyorum. Her zaman islerek mutlu olurum. Görüşmek üzere.

[@throwaway2161]

türkçen harika

[@yakamoz1108]

@@throwaway2161 Sağ olun, bey effendi.

[@bettlovesshrek2026]

Türkçeniz çok iyi, okurken Türk zannetim sonra fark ettim 😅

[@farhang-n]

استیو نازنین، امیدوارم از این سفر پرماجرا که در مسیر یادگیری زبان‌های مختلف داری، نهایت لذّت را ببری! با آرزوی بهترین ها برای شما. 💚

[@candidfellow]

alla who act bar

[@farhang-n]

@@candidfellow 😂😂😂 bro, its not Arabic btw

[@candidfellow]

@farhang-n but it's funny like ziad fazah trying to read farsi in arabic, as long as the script is alla who act bar

[@motlinux]

​@@candidfellow we are Iranian and don't like your Allah

[@IranShahr32]

​@@candidfellow تو با این خط به فکر تروریست ها می‌روی منم با خط انگلیسی به همجنسگرا ها😂

[@imanashkani8551]

Dear teacher as an Iranian-Canadian person I really adore your training and method of your research of languages. I hope best wishes for you and always I follow your new researches.🙏🙏🙏🙏🌹🌹🌹🇨🇦🇮🇷🇸🇪

[@mohsengholami925]

Thanks for this enjoying and informative video. Even we, the Persians that are familiar with Arabic script, have our struggle with Arabic language because of its vast and complex grammar system. I wish you will have a good journey and success with these languages. If you traveled to USA, you can practice your Persian in Loss Angeles which has over 100k Persian speakers. Wish you best.

[@jtee5957]

the grammar in spoken dialectical Arabic is simple. Much easier than most European languages. You must be learning Koranic Arabic.

[@setareh5888]

No we both learn standard and quranic arabic. Actually translating quranic arabic is easier at least for me. We learn both arabic and english in Iranian schools but most of us learn English much better as it is much easier than arabic (respectfully) and it's actually closer to persian. Arabic has a very complex grammar. (And I have to add we mostly focuse on grammar and learning words than speaking in schools) ​@jtee5957

[@AussieAnnihilation]

As a Hindi learner it was interesting to notice the Arabic loan words in Hindi that I could understand during your Arabic speaking. Interested to follow your upcoming Hindi journey

[@alexmckenzie8491]

I've been learning Russian for a long time (on and off). Recently it has been almost exclusively through Lingq. Having reached a plateau I am really not progressing at all. SK is 100% right about the need to supplement other methods with speaking.

[@cctoycc8114]

I'm from iraq and I'm currently learning farsi too This man is an inspiration to me. I wish I had known him earlier, I've always loved language learning since I was a kid but didn't know how to achieve that and didn't know how to do it beside lacks of materials and resources.

[@ArabianQuirkSA]

Why learn farsi 👹👺 it’s mostly Arabic

[@cctoycc8114]

@ArabianQuirkSA it has nothing to do with politics/religion. You can say: poetry, music, cinema, great history and culture, also the way it sounds and so on.

[@BehzadEbadi-nu2fb]

@@cctoycc8114 heloo from iran . use applicaion like chat gpt or giglish(for talking)

[@sukh7923]

​@@ArabianQuirkSAcouse Farsi is the best language in the world

[@ArabianQuirkSA]

@@cctoycc8114 i didn’t see your comment but Farsi is mostly Arabic

[@chadbailey7038]

😊I love these retrospective videos. A lot of value to extract. Thanks Steve!

[@Nehauon]

Good thing about learning them all is that they all have multiple connections

[@kadhumkasim]

Never give up Steven! You are a fascinating person.

[@Sirius-Voyager]

Turkiye is EuroAsia country,Yes also part of Middle East.But also Mediterrenian country. Also Thracia side is Part of Europe.And Turkiye is Caucausus country.On the other hand, Turkish is part of Turkic Language group from Central Asia.So best way is describe of Turkiye ,say to EuroAsia country.

[@ilkayylmaz2354]

*Eurasian

[@agressivepizza49]

Found the kemalist who suffers from inferiority complex

[@lllllkknn]

​@@agressivepizza49All your past comments are about Turks, are you obsessed with Turks??? stay away from us

[@agressivepizza49]

@@lllllkknn why are you checking my comments? are you obsessed with us? stay away from europe.

[@lllllkknn]

@@agressivepizza49 We're not European at all, we're Asian and why do you share Turkish content on your account? There isn't even a European ethnic group in Turkey, why do you call yourself European? Lol

[@needsomeoxycodon]

dude, u almost nailed those few Persian phrases that u spoke. Hope ur keeping it up

[@fatemere_]

استیو عزیز شما فوق‌العاده هستید. با آرزوی موفقیت‌های بیشتر و بیشتر. 😍❤

[@robertcass8466]

Verbs are the key to Arabic. Learn sound and script, but the Verbs conjugations are the secret sauce.

[@meirabalderas9193]

Would you say that is the general rule with learning most languages?

[@Rexus0705]

@@meirabalderas9193no.

[@user-Borgus]

Oh, you are ambitious ! I've been living in Yokohama, Japan for just over a year. I'm taking a Nihongo course at the Kohoku International Lounge for about three months, plus I'm learning online. It's nearly taken over my life. I live with painful medical conditions that make it difficult to concentrate - so that's a problem. Still, I carry on.

[@stephencurry8078]

Здоровье тебе брат, выздоравливай, у меня тоже некоторые болезни есть, но они просто дают хроническую усталость и сонливость.

[@h-818]

تعلّم اللغات والتعرّف على الثقافات جميل جدا. بالتوفيق. جارك من ألبرتا في كندا

[@Tama2024plus]

I envy this man for being such an awe-inspiring polyglot and here I'm struggling with my 4th language (Japanese) on my own.

[@chrisbunka]

頑張ってね、Tamaさん｡

[@buffcanuck83]

Tenez bon ami ou amie

[@Tama2024plus]

@@chrisbunkaさん, 出来るだけがんばります。ありがとうございます。

[@mukhtarhussain3432]

موفق باشی محترم از افغانستان ❤

[@valentina_fantasy]

AMAZING! BRAVO!!!! Many thanks for very useful and extremelly motivating video!

[@824animefan]

Grazie Steve! tuoi canale me aiuta molto!

[@ST-jj1uk]

Hi Steve, honestly with reading and writing Arabic - the Quran would be a big help, even to non-Muslims I believe (perhaps you may find the historical realm interesting) . It probably would be unconventional etc, but there are so many readings of it word by word and even letter by letter, and it's very accessible. Every variation of the script, cursive and non-cursive, is available on there. I am already a Muslim but couldn't read Arabic, and it sped up the process for me - there are so many resources on it too. probably worth looking into it if that is your current struggle Also pronunciation is highly looked at in that retrospect- tajweed classes is how I got my pronunciation at a high level. You read the script and someone corrects your pronunciation (it's pretty cheap too).

[@meirabalderas9193]

Love your recommendation! Any online koran with transliteration and pronunciation available?

[@m3talhe4d72]

My level of reading in Spanish is about a C1; my level of speaking is like a B1 at best 😂 however I learned Spanish in order to read and listen to Spanish novels, so I really don't mind. And because I have such a large passive vocab, now that I actually want to work on my speaking skills, it's easier for me to find the words, even if it remains hard. In Ukrainian and Arabic, my speaking level and reading level remains mostly equal, though I still prioritize reading ever so slightly (can't help it, i'm a book nerd lol). This is because I'm learning those languages with the intention of speaking them, so I'm mixing input and output more equally. Input and output are very different beasts and BOTH need to be worked on if you wanna do both, but there's nothing wrong with prioritizing one over the other if you're just learning for fun! I'm not sure I could say more than ten phrases in Welsh but I LOVE reading Welsh books, and it doesn't bother me because I'm not going to be speaking with anyone who exclusively speaks Welsh anytime soon 😂

[@OShaughnessyC]

Always so interesting and always a pleasure to hear you, Steve. Thank you.

[@carnivoreisvegan]

Steve, if you haven't run across CGE Jordan for levantine Arabic, I highly suggest you get their 101 verbs book with audio. You'll never get anywhere without learning the verbs, and it's a great course and a non profit as well.

[@meirabalderas9193]

Do they have other languages? I'm trying to learn Russian.

[@carnivoreisvegan]

@@meirabalderas9193 no, they are a physical school in Jordan teaching the local dialect. I know Steve is learning levantine Arabic, the local dialect in Jordan.

[@wolfxlover]

I'm inspired by your honesty and earnestness in sharing your mistakes to help us. You make language learning feel real and down to earth, and less of a perfect process if that makes sense. Thanks a lot, Steve! You're my language hero! (p.s. do you have any warm messages to young learners? Or, if you were 19, what would you like to tell yourself about life overall and its dynamic with language learning? Thank you :D)

[@TheDeathnice]

I'm gonna be honest Sir Steve, As a Turkish Native Speaker, English Teacher and a Spanish Learner. I watched your Exit Video after seeing you speak Turkish here. And I wouldn't really call it as that you "Learned" Turkish, it looks more like you have had an introductory level of understanding of the language which wouldn't go beyond A2. For someone to confidently say that they learned a language which would be achieving at least some levelof fluency I would expect them to be C1 at least.

[@MarkWord]

Gonna?

[@Rexus0705]

@@MarkWordgoing to

[@ceydanur123]

As a Turkish and an English teacher as well. I think you are exaggerating with C1. What will he do with that level write an essay in Turkish??😅 Though I agree that his grammar needs work but at least you can get the gist, which is the most important part I believe. But yeah I consider having learnt a language from B1 level so... yeah I partly agree with you on that note.

[@bettlovesshrek2026]

@@ceydanur123Konu ne yapacağı değil. Bu beyefendi başka dillerde de başlangıç seviyesi olduğu halde biliyorum olarak lanse ediyor. Bence başlangıç ve bilmek aynı şey kesinlikle değil. Doğru olan bir şeye bu kadar karşı çıkmaya gerek var mı? Beyefendi gerçekten doğru düzgün Türkçe anlayamıyor ve konuşamıyor. Bu kadar basit

[@bettlovesshrek2026]

@@MarkWord yes. gonna. what is the problem? this person used a second language. Could you speak their language? Look at yourself before correcting little things. Worry about your own skills

[@yimveerasak3543]

This is immensely helpful. Thank you Steve

[@richardcgs2001]

The Arabic writing system can be mastered in three weeks of study. I did the same when I was 20. Arabic is hard to master for other reasons. Getting your "ear" for Arabic distinguishing unfamiliar sounds at the pace of real speech, dealing with dialectical variants differing, in some instances, markedly from modern standard Arabic, getting automaticity in speaking correctly enunciating sounds, assimilating vast tranches of vocabulary, conjugation of all verbs properly, using the correct prepositions with the verbs, writing grammatically correct sentences are the real challenges. I am currently focusing on Persian; it helps to have the Arabic vocabulary both for Persian and Turkish/Azeri. I do agree with you about the importance of enjoying learning a language; it enables the application of more time devoted to the process of learning. I also agree for the need of practice in speaking in immersive contexts. I spent some time in Tajikistan learning Persian but did not benefit from immersive exposure in Dushanbe as most people wanted to converse with me in Russian.

[@hossein_nzr]

صحبت های شما برای من خیلی جالب بود. من از فیلم های شما برای یادگیری و بهتر کردن سطح زبان انگلیسی ام استفاده می کنم و آرزوی موفقیت برای شما دارم.

[@AminAlizade-b5t]

درود، از دیدن ویدئوی شما بسیار لذت بردم ♥️ I am Iranian, and here I share you some information about persian. Persian has been known as one of six classic world languages, because it has a rich literature and great old poet books. Also Persian has a simple, exact, and regular grammer, for example, no gender, no irregular verbs, and almost, no exceptions at gramary rules. the only perhaps hard thing is its writting that is right to left and letters sticks together. Example: Zabān-e Pārsi /zæbɒːne pɒːrsiː/ means "persian language", z= ز b= ب/بـ ā= آ/ا n= ن/نـ p=پ/پـ r=ر s= س/سـ i= ی/یـ So it will be as below: زبان پارسی

[@fireballpitpat8713]

Steven keep trying Greek such an important language in the world would be great to see you improve in it

[@behnamkiani3736]

i am persian, you did great job, if you enjoy its motivation, some how one of the most important thing is to speak even wrong and then after you got to some point try to fix that mistake most of the people never speak cause they shy or scared to be judged when they speak, as i know also turkish if you learn persian and arabic you did around 60 to 70 % turkish!

[@hopediamond8396]

Neden denemiyorsun? Sadece bu yazdigin yorumun aynısını farsça ve arapça yaz. Bakalım yüzde kaçı aynı. Hadi dene..

[@behnamkiani3736]

@@hopediamond8396 selam arkadas bu adam icin ben yazdim ve tecrube olarak konustum konusmalari gore boyle olcak tabbi ki tahmin dir ama ben kitap siz ve ocasiz ogrendim yine bu adam icin, motivasyon olsun,motivasyon ve benzer kelemeler motivation dir ornek ve bunler cok var,sizin zaman pahali dir fazlasi almam

[@ceydanur123]

​​@@behnamkiani3736I'm sorry but as a native Türk. I think you're tripping about the loanwords lol. There are about %10 I believe. If you search about the list of replaced loanwords in Turkish you'll see what I mean. Those loanwords you'll see them in Ottoman time novels however in Modern Turkish most of them arent used and a normal Turk wouldnt know the meaning of most of them. Btw I would hate to break your motivation that's not my goal and congrats to you if you learnt it without books or a teacher.

[@RetiredPolyglot]

Very useful tips, thanks for sharing your experience in language learning 🙌🏻

[@TheTeslaLawyer]

I think people assume that because these countries are all in the same area and are predominantly Muslim, their languages must be similar. But in reality, they are all completely different. While we do have some shared vocabulary, those words don't always have the same meaning.

[@jtee5957]

After 7 years of casual study by myself, I'm finally speaking Arabic fairly confidently. But I still have trouble understanding a lot of speakers owing to their speed of talking and dialectical variations. I'll go from 90 percent comprehension in one sentence to 30 percent a minute later. Frustrating, but I don't want to give up.

[@enrigle]

you are an inspiration for learning languages

[@zahraghanbarpour6217]

Hi Steve I hope you doing great ,my name is Zahra and I'm from Iran I can speak four languages ( Persian, Arabic , Kurdish and English ) I am very happy you are learning our languages if you need any help, it would be my pleasure to help you 😊 and by the way thank you for encouraging people to learn more languages , when I wanted to start learning English I tried your method (learning a language by pleasure and have fun while learning it❤❤

[@si.2110]

Maybe you can try Turkish. It will be very easy for you to learn it

[@farshadvcf3992]

Hats off Ostad ❤

[@yassineazizi-pc2vi]

it is not Israel is Palestine

[@tkbadass2023]

israel my a** whats that

[@Sepehr.1]

It's Israel 🇮🇷🇮🇱

[@Ggfdggbbb]

Its Palestine ,geet looost from Palestine you theefts

[@Adriana-ph2eb]

Go and read the Bible

[@atilasatilmis9986]

@@Adriana-ph2eb when you read the Bible you learn that there was Canaanites in Levant. David fought Goliath, right? He wasn't Jew.

[@ONANDON-u4z]

If you're keen on Arabic, consider using effective tools such as DeepL and Immersive Translate to help you grasp the essence.

[@NicoleYoshihara]

Thank you for your videos and your hard work Steve! So insightful and so cool to hear your language learning processes and journeys 😊

[@Массинисса-у1э]

I have become fluent in languages which are spoken in countries that I've never visited. For example, English, German, French, and now I'm becoming fluent in Hebrew. I think that speaking with people does help, especially in the beginning, but not as much as reading and listening to content. Also, I've noticed that teaching English and French has helped me to improve my own level in these languages.

[@Kitiwake]

Native English speaker (Ireland) here. Your English writing is perfect here. 😊

[@Массинисса-у1э]

@@Kitiwake Thank you! I really appreciate that.

[@meirabalderas9193]

Any recommendations on learning Hebrew? I heard it's very hard

[@marcospauloviegas5765]

Good to know about your experiences Steve! I'm in my first language yet: English. However, it's cool to know about your mistakes and pitfalls. I'm thinking about to start a new romance language (I'm a Portuguese speaker), maybe French...

[@gord01100]

Hi Steve, I did the same thing that you did: tried to study three languages at the same time (German, Italian and English) because I'm about to travel to those places, but I'm exhausted!!! I don't regret it but I think that I will stop two of them after my travel and focus on English and then come back with the others. I found this experience extremely HARD; sometimes I did some lessons on Lingq but fell asleep :D at least, I understand some German and a lot of Italian ( I loved Pinocchio)

[@nell7z]

Bonjour Steve ! Je ne manque aucune de vos vidéos qui sont toutes pleines de bons conseils et m'encouragent dans mon apprentissage des langues. Je me suis lancé (à bientôt 70 ans) dans l'étude du Russe avec LingQ qui me donne entière satisfaction. Je vais suivre vos conseils concernant le fait de s'entraîner à écrire avec un alphabet différent. Concernant le grec, j'ai passé trois mois à Athènes et dans le Péloponnèse pour essayer d''apprendre la langue puis j'ai fini par abandonner pour 3 raisons : 1) beaucoup de grecs y compris des séniors parlement anglais ; 2) on peut s'intéresser à la culture aux us et coutumes d'un pays sans en parler la langue ; et enfin, la plus importante à mes yeux : 3) quel intérêt d'apprendre une langue difficile qui n'est pratiquement pas parlée dès que l'on sort du pays ? Je me suis fait la même réflexion pour le hongrois malgré des séjours réguliers à Budapest. Bonne continuation

[@Sparkssss]

Steve, I don't know if you know this, but if we write something by hand (using pencil and paper), our brain will remember it much better than just reading it and that way I guess we will learn better and faster. Don't know. what you think about that. That was also my mistake when learning languages, not writing anything in my target language.

[@360.Outdoors.Videos]

Hello . I am old now . Nevertheless I love to learn languages on YT by listening ! Then I do my phonetic exercices like a parrot would do ! ☀️☀️ Greetings from France .

[@nell7z]

Bonjour ! Cela veut dire quoi "vieux" ? 🤔

[@h_h4790]

آفرین، همین مسیر را ادامه بده. تو می‌توانی❤❤

[@renovation-maison]

I began learning Arabic by focusing on writing from the very beginning, but I made the mistake of concentrating on Modern Standard Arabic. It's not the form of Arabic people use in daily conversations. Instead, native speakers use various dialects, which are challenging to study in the same way as other languages because there's no literature available in those dialects. Learning Arabic can be quite a challenge because it involves mastering both Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) for reading and writing as well as a regional dialect for everyday conversation. If someone were to develop an effective methodology that seamlessly integrates the learning of both Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and regional dialects, addressing the unique challenges learners face, it could revolutionize Arabic language education. Such a method would likely gain widespread success, as it would provide learners with a more practical and comprehensive approach, making the language more accessible and easier to master for non-native speakers.

[@Ambrosia-]

Don't waste time for this monkey garbagee

[@stepheng9607]

I have really enjoyed your last few videos covering your learning problems with Arabic, Persian and Turkish and what you have learnt from them. Many thanks. One of the issues I have is maintaining motivation on a language when I don't have a particular need for it. I do read around the history and culture but sometimes I find it difficult when I have no plans to visit the country where the language is spoken. I do wonder if part of your motivation to try out new languages comes from your involvement with LingQ.

[@patrickmcevoy3257]

Steve good evening watching ur channel on trucish it takes time u learned Japanese and Chinese ur a pro at language s good luck with the new language thank you good luck

[@CaptainWumbo]

here is something true: we often don't know what we did that worked or didn't work. All we can do is as precisely as possible recount what we did to others. It is up to science to disentangle our personal experience into general rules we can leverage. I think that learning the writing system likely is very important, because it gives you access to a really important activity: free recall and meaningful use of the language. Another likely important factor is social motivation, outward pressures on you to use the language with people you must interact with. The science around just reading to improve is a bit sketchy. It obviously is an important component, but I'm not sure language becomes real to us until we have important reasons to use and master it. It may be impossible to becomes fluent just as a hobby, at least I think that will be a very painful hobby for most people. We only have that much time on this earth to spend by ourselves, and it's so hard to internalise something we never use. I find myself discouraged in my 2nd language which is only a hobby. I am somewhere in b1 b2 hell and I think something would have to change for getting better to be possible or make sense. If I had something better to do I would certainly give up.

[@KevinLossner]

Steve, your suggestion to WRITE early is more than intriguing. I think there is a lot to recommend that alongside oral exercises.

[@sinarezaee623]

Wow your accent in Persian is great. You speak like natives

[@BOBWALL01]

There is only one arabic , actually if you learn the standard arabic eveyone will understand you , there is no need at all to learn Egyptian dialect or any other dialects in Arabian countries , a huge love from your fan ❤❤❤ and dont forget to keep going 👍❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

[@BarefootShaman]

Hi Steve, thank you for this video. I have been studying Arabic since 2018. I have now dropped Arabic and am concentrating on Spanish (I live in Madrid), French, Russian and Japanese. My mistake with Arabic is starting with the alphabet. I now am learning languages like babies do; lots of listening (I apply this to Russian and Japanese). Have you considered visiting Morocco and just spending time in the cafes talking to people? All Moroccans speak a mixture of Arabic, French, Spanish and Berber. Good luck!

[@jaysterling26]

I'm sure Mr Kaufman visited Morocco years ago - check his playlists.

[@carnivoreisvegan]

I hope no one feels intimidated by the Arabic script. It's very easy to learn as it's phonetic and consistent. I started learning the Arabic script less than a month ago and I'm reading "fluently" , meaning I can sound out and pronounce almost everything , even though I can't understand what I'm reading and pronouncing. Don't be intimidated in the least by the Arabic script. And definitely DO learn the Arabic script from the start. Almost every "good" dialect course consciously decided not to publish anything in transliteration because they feel it's too easy to learn the script, and you need it for proper pronunciation. And you really do. You cannot get the nuances of pronunciation from transliteration. And you need it to understand the root system , which is vital .

[@meirabalderas9193]

Please jeep us posted on your experience with this. I want to follow your progress as i too have struggled very much with arabic.

[@mravalik]

I deeply appreciate your content and can relate enormously, especially when dealing with learning many languages. For myself, the hardest thing for me to do is when becoming familiar with a language, however seeing the lack of importance it would serve me, and choosing to abandon said language, I feel a looming sense of letting down the people whom speak the language, so it is quite a disheartening moment. Although I have to remind myself that (especially in my lifetime) these languages are not going anywhere and will have plenty of time to learn them, with all that being said, thank you for your advice!

[@unwrittenbook]

My brain is focused on Korean right now - after I took some time to learn the letters, I have started to copy the LingQ Mini-stories in a notebook. Writing by hand and listening and trying to decipher my own handwriting has worked really well for me! Doing the same for Chinese - I think it started with a short story on KZbin and I wanted to to translate it and work on it more intensely - copying was the only way to go at that time :P

[@shanarkhanlou]

Wow! such a nice idea. I have to try this method. I am also learning Korean I am struggling with the dictation of words

[@SophieWatson-vc6xu]

I'm also on korean right now as of this week, I'm currently watching a guy on KZbin who makes comprehensive input in the form of him playing games while he narrates his actions and the game. He has playlists from complete beginner to advanced, what have you found helpful in terms of beginner content (if you dont mind me asking)

[@unwrittenbook]

@@shanarkhanlou right now I am not worrying about spelling :D but in the future it might good as a dictation practice! I hope it works for you!

[@danieldelgado6464]

Very nice editing Steve

[@MunifTheGreat]

Coming from someone who doesn't speak Arabic. That is so true though. I couldn't understand my own handwriting at first in Arabic. I always typed everything. (I'm now faster at typing Arabic than many of those natives in the language. But one though, spoken Arabic is vastly different from written unless it is formal. I started speaking much later then writing and reading. The words were often three wrong ones. Despite having similar translations.

[@hojatbahadori]

thank you Steve ❤❤😊

[@Dannykhc]

Being an ex-journalist, I have the habit of writing things down so in learning German, I also got into the habit of copying down huge quantities of German dialogues on MS Word, I just slow down the KZbin video that has the dialogue with audio and text, and do it like dictation, writing out on the computer, then look up the words I don't know. I've also copied out the dialogues in the assimil textbooks. So hearing, writing, and reading, all at the same time. It can be time consuming though.

[@streamingpandora]

This is interesting and it was my gut feeling as well. I started learning Hebrew using Lingq and I really struggled with it because I didn't understand the letters. I haven't got past the first page of the first lesson, for this reason. There was no point going past it, as I simply couldn't understand anything that was written and I couldn't match it up unlike when I'm studying Italian or have studied Norwegian, and that's because I understood the alphabet. I felt it was much better to go and get a grounding in the alphabet first and then start writing it down, just they way we do as children.

[@Musicienne-DAB1995]

I always start by learning the alphabet. I learned the Arabic alphabet, I learned the Hebrew alphabet, and I also quickly learned the Cyrillic alphabet. I don't know much modern Hebrew, but I do not quite a few religious Hebrew words. Knowing the alphabet and vowel sounds was key.

[@meirabalderas9193]

Have you tried Duolingo for Hebrew?

[@norama3998]

في الحقيقة كنتَ في فلسطين ..أي نعم ! .. 🇸🇩✌️🇸🇩

[@asheghpisheh]

تشکر بابت ساخت برنامه ای درباره زبان زیبای پارسی❤❤❤

[@XVa-uj8m]

Steve can you recommend any good original Arabic TV shows besides that UAE show Justice?

[@rebeccamiko9156]

It seems like you are learning Middle Eastern languages for the same reason that I'm learning Korean. I lived in East Asia (Japan) for a couple of years, studied some Japanese, but I wanted to see what Korean was all about since it seems like Korean culture is becoming very popular around the world. I hope to still be learning languages when I'm your age!

[@TitiReis-t2s]

Türkiye is not middle east country. Do you know what is middle east in fact? Who is fabricated this fake term? İs this middle east kzbin.info/www/bejne/i4TZZKx6idZsgKs Or this kzbin.info/www/bejne/m6CQh3Zrj9x1eLM

[@Héctor889-k5h]

Wow,i'm trying to improve my english and i'm learning french,i made the same mistake trying to learn three languages because i wanted to learn arabic using busuu,but i abandoned the arabic and i decided to continue with the french,now i can understand a documentary in french,when i finish the course of french i'll try to learn turkish or arabic...

[@umturock4088]

Yeah one might look at where these 3 languages reside and decide "I'll learn/tackle this as well" but it is a bait. Considering these 3 languages are completely different in terms of how they work it'd be simple overwhelming. They share some vocabulary but even that is used differently with considerable nuissances. On topic of Turkish, I suggest to read poems (and to my knowledge Persian as well). Poems will help you with vowel harmony (not just in the word itself but in the whole sentence, how the mouth/tongue moves and such), and it'll kinda force you to learn how Turkish works, instead of trying to decipher it in your head.

[@sabarasouli9156]

واااو ستیو کافمن باعث افتخاره که شما دارید زبون فارسی رو یاد می گیرید و دارید به خوبی صحبت می کنید

[@Hi-nf6pj]

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[@mmdjvdazh]

❌👋

[@dark_side-2005]

خیلی جالب بود

[@Mortazavi-vr5tm]

Ken please take my advice for learning language first listen to the music listen and listen of that language i learned german turkish arabic this way

[@AlanMustafa]

Dear Steve, thank you for sharing your experience, however, may I respectfuly take your atention to the largest group of people of about 70 m inthe Middle East with no official country known as Kurds? Thank you.

[@FahimFarooqFoto]

Have you tried tajiki? It’s Persian with the crylic writing system

[@Pansistani]

You can learn persian with Cyrillic alphabet (Tajikistani persian)

[@AKo-ig7sk]

You spoke in Persian very well.

[@mollanoori]

What resources did you use to learn Persian? How did you find Persian resources compared to other languages? I am native Persian speaker so I never had the experience of learning it as a second language.

[@a.h.sh.l.o.l2190]

As a scots native speaker who learnt and speaks these 3 languages, the biggest mistake that people make while learning them is that they assume since these languages are spoken in the same region they are close languages and learning one would get them through the other two. there are so many common words amoung them especially amoung Arabic and Persian but even the natives of these languages find it hard to learn the other two as they each belong to a unique language family.

[@hopeless7374]

I ve learned turkish i learn actually arabic and i will start learning persian in the near future inşallah ❤

[@tolgaucar-gl1vm]

Apart from the writing system of Arabic and Persian, in my opinion the most difficult language to master is Chinese

[@rfs55]

Hi Steve, have you tried learning from Persian textbokks k-12? I think they help you with writing.

[@Saa42808]

Your English is very fluent.😯

[@JuanCarlosCanova-uo7fm]

Steve es una inspiración para mí para aprender español en este momento me parece que la conjugación español muy difícil 😢 me siento como si quisiera parar pero cada vez que veo el video de steve me motiva porque el idioma que estoy planeando dejar es solo el español pero steve no dejo de aprender idiomas el aprendio muchos idiomas

[@Salah_-_Uddin]

Even though I don't speak Persian, but I understand some words.

[@اریواریانفر]

Where are you from?

[@Salah_-_Uddin]

@@اریواریانفر Pakistan.