To learn Arabic can be quaite a feat, especially as the Arabic letters are totally different from the Western script. It's therefore a lot more convenient and rapid to learn to speak Arabic by listening to audio tapes or MP3 files with Arabic classes.

One such system is the Pimsleur Arabic classes, a series of audio files specifically prepared to teach Arabic students in an efficient, easy to implement and fun way the Arabic language.

An other good way of becoming prificient in Arabic is to listen to Arabic Radio Stations and Free ArabicTV online. (See links further down).

The influence on other similar languages of the Arabic language has been most important in Islamic countries.

Arabic is the baisis for the vocabulary for many different languages like Berber, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian, Swahili, Urdu, Hindustani (especially the spoken variety), Turkish, Malay and Indonesian, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken. Here is a good example: The Arabic word for book (kitab) is used in all the languages listed.

Also more Western oriented languages like Spanish and Portuguese have large numbers of Arabic loan words. This is due to the historically close proximity of Arab conquerors and the trade exchanges these countries had with the Arab world.

Even English has quite a few word with Arabic origins, some directly but most through the medium of other Mediterranean languages. Other languages such as Maltese and Kinubi are based on Arabic, thus they were not just borrowing some words for their vocabulary or some grammar rules, they are built on the basis of Arabic.