UAE RESIDENTS TAP INTO MOBILE APPS TO LEARN ARABIC AS TECH BRINGS LANGUAGE WITHIN REACH
▶ Duolingo and Rosetta Stone among platforms helping to make learning cheaper and easier
Mobile apps have proven to be game-changers for people seeking to learn new languages including Arabic.
Duolingo, Rosetta Stone and Promova are among the platforms that use gamification techniques, including quizzes, challenges and rewards, to keep users hooked on learning.
Khushie Mallya, a public relations professional from India, is among the UAE residents learning Arabic using Duolingo, which launched the course in 2019.
“When I first joined my company, I realised that everybody spoke Arabic,” Ms Mallya told The National.
“I thought if I learnt Arabic, it would be easier for me to connect and communicate with my colleagues.
“That’s why I decided to give it a try.”
She picked up a few simple phrases within a few days.
“One day when I walked into my office, instead of saying ‘good morning’, I said ‘sabah al khair’, and my colleagues were pleasantly surprised.”
Her efforts have been fruitful and she is now able to hold a basic conversation in Arabic.
“I spent 10 to 15 minutes a day learning Arabic. It is easy, fun and self-paced,” she said.
The platform has informed Ms Mallya, who works for Matrix Public Relations in Dubai, that she has achieved an impressive learning streak of 200 consecutive days of practice.
Her commitment to the language has inspired her colleagues to launch an office Duolingo challenge, with chief executive Hilmarie Hutchison leading by example.
Ms Hutchison, an Australian citizen who has lived in the UAE since 2007, said she did not initially try to learn Arabic because so many people in Dubai spoke English.
But the company wants to change that, she said.
To encourage her staff to participate in the language challenge, Ms Hutchison has promised to pay for the premium version of Duolingo if they completed a 30-day streak.
“Our office is made up of 40 per cent of Arabic speakers. Knowing the language definitely helps us connect with them,” she said.
“As a home-grown agency, I believe we should do better in Arabic and I am glad we are on that path now.”
Language apps have also proven useful to those who learnt Arabic, but allowed their skills to become rusty when they moved to other countries.
Aisha Yaqub, a Pakistani citizen, told The National that she grew up in Kuwait and moved to Dubai 20 years ago.
She found that most of the people she met spoke English.
“I stopped speaking in Arabic on a daily basis and over the years, I completely lost touch with it,” she said.
She recently became friends with an Arab, which has helped to rekindle her interest in speaking the language.
“I started watching Arabic movies and listening to Arabic songs,” Ms Yaqub said.
“That’s where my love for the language was reignited, and I decided to learn Arabic again.”
Downloading an app was the easiest way for her to brush up on her language skills.
She said that after eight months, using apps has proven to be a far more enjoyable experience than attending classes with a tutor.
Using platforms on her phone is also cheaper, she said.
“With a full-time job, it is not easy to attend language classes at a specific time,” she said. “Using Duolingo, alongside Google Translate, allows me to learn at my own pace.”
It is a sentiment echoed by many residents who are keen to learn Arabic.
They prefer to practise on their phones, having been put off attending classes because of the costs.
Vincent Gomes, an Indian citizen who works as a sales manager in Sharjah, said he gave up on private lessons because they were too expensive.
“He [the tutor] was charging me Dh100 per lesson and I simply could not afford that,” Mr Gomes said.
“I took seven lessons by forking out Dh700.
“That kind of money is not sustainable in the long run.”
Mr Gomes switched from traditional lessons to Rosetta Stone and has been using the app for the past nine months.
He said he could now speak basic Arabic.
Data shows about 13.4 million people downloaded Duolingo in February, making it the most popular language-learning app in the world.
As of last year, the app had more than 500 million registered users.
Interest in learning languages surged during the coronavirus pandemic, as people all over the world turned to mobile apps to beat the boredom of lockdowns and restrictions on global travel.
Babbel, founded in 2007, uses real conversations by native speakers to help teach users a new language.
The Berlin-based company said it generated €198 million ($213.2 million) in revenue in 2021, a 34 per cent increase from the previous year.
More than 10 million people have subscribed to Babbel since its launch in 2008.
UAE residents have also used the AI-powered languagelearning tool Arabits to help them learn the language.
“Since its launch in 2021, Arabits has been downloaded over 1.8 million times through Google Play and the Apple App Store,” said Geoffrey Alphonso, chief executive of Alef Education, the UAE-based education technology company behind the platform.
“The app aims to facilitate Arabic language learning for approximately 80 per cent of the UAE population who do not speak Arabic, in addition to the student population. Learning
Arabic is complex and challenging, especially for non-native speakers.
“That’s why we developed Arabits. It helps learners develop their Arabic reading, writing, speaking and listening skills to suit each learner’s ability and learning style.”
Despite the enthusiasm of residents to use mobile apps to help them learn Arabic, some experts believe there is a limit to how proficient people can become using the technology.
Dr Hanada Thomure, endowed chairwoman and professor of Arabic language studies at Zayed University in Dubai, told The National that there was “no conclusive evidence” to prove apps worked better than traditional methods of learning.
But she said apps had helped learners to reach a basic or intermediate level.
“Many AI-powered learning language tools are accelerating the language-learning process,” she said.
“It is definitely helping to bridge the gap in Arabic language learning.”
I realised everybody at my company spoke Arabic. I thought if I learnt it, it would be easier to connect with colleagues KHUSHIE MALLYA Dubai resident