"davem" has an interesting post at Harry's Place (with thanks to Alan):
When it comes to learning Arabic there’s one thing nobody ever warns you about, let alone prepares you for. If this subject does come up it’s immediately brushed under the carpet.
It is the simple fact that learning to speak Arabic is actually quite stressful.
Why should this be? It’s just a language, right? Yes and no.
It’s not like European languages, which are basically verbal ways to convey information on who did what, where, when, how and why. It appears to me that having developed in an environment that prohibits any sort of critical thought, especially in the fields of religion and politics, Arabic has become a means to avoid dealing with difficult issues.
In some Arabic-speaking countries, asking ‘how’ and ‘why’ can get you imprisoned. Therefore the more skilled you are at it, the better you are at avoidance by using ever bigger words and ever more flowery metaphors. In the end it just becomes one big exercise in denial.
Nothing can top the frustration I endured trying desperately but in vain, for a full year, to have a normal conversation with the locals in Assad’s Syria. Nothing else even comes close...
I was always told that as long as I avoided politics and religion, everything would be OK. But then what’s left? After all there are only so many conversations you can have about sand before it starts to get boring.
The only path left is learning via TV, at which point you’re like Alice In Wonderland, where facts, logic and analysis have absolutely no place. However conspiracies, unsubstantiated allegations, “group think”, paranoia, and denial become the common currency. If you don’t subscribe to them then you’re a “Jew” or a “spy”. What else could you be?
Understandably the Arab world likes to keep this sort of thing well away from the English-speaking world– which is probably why channels like Al Jazeera English do not broadcast the Arabic channel’s output.
(...)
Nick Cohen, in his book “What’s Left,” said that bad writing is indicative of somebody with something to hide. I showed that passage to my Kurdish friend in Syria, who told me: “That’s the single best description of Arabic ever written”.
