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The Great MSA/Dialect Debate | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4646 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 9 of 21 30 March 2015 at 1:32am | IP Logged | ||
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What is nonesense? her saying it takes 2 years for an error-free Arabic sentence to be
said? Or her view of MSA versus dialect first? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5196 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 10 of 21 30 March 2015 at 1:59am | IP Logged | ||
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For a typical twice-a-week-language-class scenario - which is how the majority of grown-up language learners probably start, two years seems appropriate.
In an interview with a professor of Arabic he mentions (about 6 min into the video) that some of his students manage to reach an intermediate level already within one year. It depends. They are probably doing more homework. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4642 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 11 of 21 30 March 2015 at 5:41am | IP Logged | ||
The first one is nonsense. If I repeat a native speaker's sentence, it's error-free. If I say a simple greeting correctly, it's error-free. What she means is that it takes two years to be almost completely fully functional as a human being - this I can believe, but even then I fear that someone is being fairly inefficient when studying Arabic. I would say it's even ridiculous with regard to any language. If you're going to follow an inefficient language class approach then YES it is going to take two years, but I don't see why anyone would take a route that slow, unless they're like me and have to juggle 17 other languages at the same time (and even then I could find the time to get to B1 Arabic in half a year easily enough; probably even less). With regards to MSA vs dialect, I also disagree, but here you have a lot more leeway depending on personal goals. I would always start with dialect first but that has way more to do with my lifestyle and goals than it has to do with any academic study of the language (and I am not studying Arabic at this point in time anyway). Edited by tarvos on 30 March 2015 at 5:42am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5996 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 12 of 21 30 March 2015 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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@ericblair: I agree with tarvos, and that's why I started with MSA.
Confused? Don't be. If you look at his argumentation, he says you should follow the method that best suits your needs, in order to attain your goals. So, if you want to hit the ground running in a short period of time, you should choose a dialect. Given its entertainment-based diffusion, Egyptian would probably be your best bet. However, if you want to find a common denominator, valid across the Arabic-speaking world, you should go with MSA. This approach will give you a wider vision of the language, albeit taking longer. I really don't want to reopen the discussion one more time, but I'd like to give an example (in topics): 1. I studied Arabic for 5 years with a Tunisian teacher. From day one, he told us he would be teaching us MSA, and that's what he did. 2. One colleague was a Portuguese engineer that had worked for a few years in Morocco. As he used French in his everyday life, the local expressions he picked up were few and far between. Yet, in 3 or 4 years, he went shopping, got to travel a little, got invited to parties, etc. 3. As a result, he picked up a lot of isolated expressions, which he always thought to be Arabic. This as default, of course, since he knew that Moroccan is one of the toughest dialects, since a) it was developed independently, and b) is full of Berber words and expressions. 4. What happened is that, every now and then, this colleague would venture an expression, and our teacher would smile and tell him "no, that's dialect", or "I don't know that one". If you add the fact that he is Tunisian (closer to Morocco), you get a glimpse of the diversity it entails. My point is: by starting with MSA, you may (admittedly after a longer period of time) then learn one or more dialects. If you start with a dialect, you can never be sure whether what you're saying is local or global. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4646 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 13 of 21 31 March 2015 at 1:46am | IP Logged | ||
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tarvos, 6 months to B1 for Arabic seems quite ambitious. Care to share what your plan of
action would be? I'm curious! Luso, nice post. I think from what everyone is saying that MSA is a it of a no-brainer in my situation. I will take that as far as I can, test to get it on paper in my favor, and then readjust for a dialect if/when I get an opportunity to do work abroad. if that never comes, I will just work on MSA indefinitely and work on any dialect that catches my attention down the road. Though I think I am partial to the Saudi Arabic course from FSI. Looks quite thorough! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4642 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 14 of 21 31 March 2015 at 3:34am | IP Logged | ||
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The same as my plan for every other language. I have reached B1 Chinese in 6 months as
well, and I reached B2 Swedish/Romanian in 6 months! In Arabic, I imagine the diglossia complicates things a bit, but I wouldn't do things very differently, and I don't have characters to contend with in Arabic. I would pick a dialect, start learning that (in my case, Levantine) and learn the alphabet and pronunciation concomitantly. (particularly the Levantine dialect pronunciation). I would get a tutor to instruct me on how the dialect works (preferably from Lebanon or Palestine) and work from there. Once I have a solid grasp of the dialect basics I would move on to reading simple texts. I would try to find materials aimed at the dialect specifically. After 3 months of familiarization with the dialect I would dive more into MSA and written material. I would also stage immersion in a Levantine-speaking country (preferably Israel or Lebanon). Nothing different from what I have done elsewhere. The only thing I would do is drop most of my other activities and focus on preparing for that language trip/immersion. But keep in mind that would be from a travel perspective - I have no intention of becoming a religious scholar and Classical Arabic is out of the question - MSA is just there to understand news reports and so on at a later level should I wish to go there. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5996 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 15 of 21 31 March 2015 at 3:50am | IP Logged | ||
The choice of a dialect might be a treat in itself. To help you choose, we could take a look at a map that I use sometimes:
Please note that what follows is not based on dozens of papers, but it's not wild speculation either. Where I don't know, I say it. Roughly speaking, you have three or four major dialects that have diverged from the "classical" language. This happened mainly in important centres of learning, capitals of important dynasties, or heavily populated cities, such as Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba, Fez, etc. - Levantine: Umayyad dynasty; Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan. - Iraqi: Abbasid dynasty; Iraq, and formerly further to the East. - Egyptian: Fatimids, Mamluks, ...; Egypt (similar to most Saudi dialects). - Maghrebi: several dynasties; Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and formerly large parts of the Iberian Peninsula. I didn't mention the Gulf cluster, because I really don't know it. I understand dialects in the region are similar to one another, but little more. Some peculiarities: - Most Saudis don't speak Gulf dialects, because they tend to live near the Red Sea; hence, due to trade, their dialects (Hijazi, even Najdi) are closer to Egyptian. Same with coastal Yemenis. - Due to isolation, some dialects are a lot closer to "classical" Arabic: these include Hassaniya (apparently, Mauritanians traded more via Trans-Saharan routes than with Moroccans), Libyan (semi-isolated between Egypt and Maghreb) and, more understandably, nomads and mountain folk from the Arabian Peninsula. - Interestingly, I'd say that, due to geography, it's easier to find common dialects across seas (Red Sea, Persian Gulf) than places linked by land (but rendered inhospitable by deserts); note especially the Red Sea symmetry. - In some regions, we find dialects with significant influences from completely unrelated languages, such as Farsi, Kurdish and Berber; some versions can even be considered creoles (like in some regions of Africa). So, here it is. I hope you have fun learning Arabic (MSA and then your dialect of choice). 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4586 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 16 of 21 31 March 2015 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'll add that Yemeni Arabic is a single color on the map but the country has insane dialectal variation within its borders.
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