maybe because -it has many litters have special spelling doesn't exist in another language, like ع ح ق - you must read and write from right to left, and most of the other languages start from left to right. - it has many dialects, thus may let you if you learn one of them cannot understand another dialects. BUT even though, it is still beautiful language to learn and have wide spreading places speak it :)

I could give you 101 answers to that question, I think :) Of course any student's existing language skills are an important factor. For speakers of European languages, Arabic is particularly unfamiliar, just like Chinese or Korean. The Arabic grammar is extensive, complex and at times completely illogical, at least to me. This article provides a interesting insight in some of the common frustrations among students of Arabic: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2005/06/im_trying_to_learn_arabic.html Personally, I don't think the alphabet is the problem. It's always tricky to learn a new script, but I've never felt that the Arabic alphabet is harder than the Latin or Cyrillic or Greek ones. I've never even started to learn Chinese writing, but judging from what I've heard about it, it would be far harder to learn.

I am studying Egyptian Arabic and I find it far easier than French or German. There are of course certain sounds that are difficult for English speakers to pronounce well, but you will have that issue with many languages.