Ask HN: Learn Arabic?

First, think about what you want to do with the language. If you were to learn classical Arabic, you could understand news broadcasts, or the Koran, but little spoken language in any Arab country you were to visit.

That's because most regions speak a dialect of Arabic which can be quite different from classical Arabic. Apparently, the translators trained by the US Army for Iraq service learned Modern Standard Elementary Arabic, and when they got to Iraq they couldn't understand what the locals were saying. Thus the army had to hire local translators.

Watch this link to find out more...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDg3yPSzsEg