Cathy, arabic is not that difficult. Think of Gregg's shorthand when you see the arabic alphabet. All those squiggles stand for a sound, a phoneme. They are connected to produce words and is written right to left. So words do not have 'correct' spellings and depend on local pronunciation, hence the difficulty of translating to written English. Take the Libyan's president's name which can be written Khaddafy (when the speaker stresses on the 'h') or Qaddafy (when the 'h' isn't stressed). I find the Egyptian and Syrian variety more difficult to understand. But I do like the way the Syrians speak, soft-like and with a sing-song quality. The Bedouin variety sounds harsh and they use words not in common with other arabic speakers and we get stumped including arab doctors themselves when I ask for help. But somehow we sort things out.