When I started learning languages in my late teenage years, I began with French and Persian. French, like most European languages, uses an alphabetic writing system, whereas Persian, like many languages in the Middle East uses an abjad writing system. I later also learned north Indian languages which use abugida writing systems, and last year I began learning Japanese which makes use of both syllabic and logographic writing systems.
If you’re reading this article you’ll be familiar with alphabetic writing systems, where individual symbols generally represent both vowels and consonants. With abjad writing systems, each symbol generally represents a consonant and the responsibility of determining the correct vowels between those consonants falls with the reader, though modern abjad writing systems such as the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets have optional diacritic marks or symbols that can represent some vowels.