61.From script to grammatical principles, forms and words, (a) We have now covered all but a very few, and very minor, aspects of the basic problems relating to the Arabic script (and these other details will be dealt with as they arise). However, the student will be doing well if he can yet identify the consonants readily, not to mention the less important signs: it will be weeks, and even months, before he feels “at home” with the script in its simplest form, and for easy decipherment of some more difficult and more artistic forms, years are often not enough. Above all, the student who has thoroughly digested Chapter 3 will realise that it is never possible to speak of “reading” Arabic in the same sense that he might, even at the present stage, read Italian or Russian: anyone who has learned the almost fully explicit relationship between sign and sound in these languages can effectively pronounce any word in them, whether or not he understands that word's meaning or function: it is never possible to say this of Arabic, unless it be artificially adorned with the vowel-marks and other signs.

(b) While the student is slowly but steadily strengthening his hold on the script, we must begin rapidly to lay the foundations of grammatical understanding; the student himself must also memorise all the forms and vocabulary used from now on, but grammatical understanding is at this stage the real key to progress, and it remains indispensable.