I appreciate that this article stresses the importance of being a responsible and proactive learner. If we want to acquire another language, then we have to do the work required to reach the level of fluency we're trying to obtain, without making excuses. 

Now in terms of addressing the question posed, I'd like to share the experience I had learning Arabic. My interest in the language started when I took a trip to Jordan several summers ago. My friends and I visited places such as Petra, the Dead Sea, and Amman just to name a few! Prior to my trip, I took a visit to my local library and borrowed an Arabic cd package, which included a dictionary and phrase book. I had so much fun studying on my own! The language was so new, and so beautiful, and so different from any other language I had encountered. My time spent in Jordan was AMAZING, and I had a blast practicing Arabic with the locals.

After coming home from my trip, I enrolled in an Arabic class at my college. And this is what solidified my love of this language. My professor was fantastic. She was from Algeria and had such a pleasant and fun personality. She was very patient and had the best teaching style I've ever encountered from a language teacher. She spent the first half of the semester focusing on pronunciation and writing the alphabet; thoroughly explaining how the letters change shapes, and getting us comfortable with pronouncing simple words and phrases. I am so thankful that my professor really took the time to make sure that all of us were on the same page and understood the alphabet. This attention to detail has been the best language learning experience I've ever had, and I look forward to continuing to learn Arabic. She helped us to see that learning Arabic is definitely something we could all do if we were patient and took it one step at a time. A great teacher can make all the difference.

I study the languane since one year without a teacher. I learnd the alfabet by youtube videos, the gammer by pdf in internet and the vokabulary by a dictenary. I love to learn it. But because i have less time ;-) , it goes slowly. I met the languane, because i met syrian refugees in my home village in Southgermany. 

Sometimes i shake my head because of the grammer rules of the Arabic languane, because the are so different to the Germans. But i will go on - slowly. Thanks for your articles.

I'd be really interested in learning Arabic, but the alphabet looks so different to the others I know (latin and greek) that I'm apprehensive about starting.

My L2 is Spanish and I'm fascinated by the links between the two languages, it's just the alphabet holding me back!

Learning MSA from any one source is hit or miss. Some books care about case endings (الإعراب), other pretend that they don't exist. Some books barely teach how to use the numbers correctly. Others present the dual doesn't exist (it does) or that verb moods aren't important (they are). It seems like even Arabs are confused whether hamza should appear in words like ibn (no), uktub (no), aktubu (yes), i3raab (yes) given the number of books and apps that consistently mess it up. Defective nouns, diptotes? Forget it, virtually every Arab I've talked to had no idea how to use them correctly.

In short, Arabs are often imperfect models of MSA speech/writing and often mix their L1 pronunciation and words into MSA. It's a shame that it is so difficult to learn, but it's even more so because it is nobody's L1 and there are so many poor guides to MSA out there.

Persistence is key, and lots of input. Get used to ambiguity and imperfect/irregular speech.

What is very hard in Arabic is the vocabulary for a person with European background. The script is not difficult (alphabetical) unless you have problems with your sight (everything is printed so small!). The grammar is easier then in other languages I learned....but the vocabulary is hard.

There are no "cognates" between Italian (or English, German, French, Spanish) and Arabic.

Maybe for people speaking a Semitic language like Hebrew it's easier.

Maybe it's easier for people who speak non-Semitic languages like Farsi or Dari. In Farsi many words have been imported from Arabic for historical reasons and the script is the (almost) the same.

No doubt Arabic isn't easy for the average European. But Arabs learning a European language have also a difficult task, so if THEY can learn English why shouldn't WE be able to learn Arabic?

Yalla! Heyya bina!