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Is Arabic underestimated? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3919 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 57 of 75 11 July 2015 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Woodsei, thank you so much for all the information you gave. Yes, please any information you have would be very wonderful!!! I am going to go to
Detroit in a couple of weeks, and I hope to go to the Arabic communities in Dearborn and see if I can find any books to help in learning Arabic. Maybe if there isn't much of anything there, I can order something, so if you have any names, please share them!!! THANK YOU! : ) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4794 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 58 of 75 13 July 2015 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hi, apologies for the late reply!
hp230, I agree with the above 100%. MSA is a beautiful language rich with rhetoric and beauty, and knowing MSA is a sign of a very highly educated, intellectual, and forward-thinking person. And yes, because now foreign languages are hip, and almost everything is being dialectified, MSA as we know it, is declining. However, what I wanted to say is that the level of MSA may be declining, but MSA itself isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Simply because there still are productions dependent on MSA usage, the presence of classic works of literature, poetry, and film, and the necessity to read and understand the Quran. I admit, I myself was guilty of not being that good at producing grammatically correct written and spoken MSA, even though I could read and listen to it and understand it just fine. Recently, however, I took upon myself the goal of reclaiming it, and have been reading and listening to all sorts of things MSA. And I am improving a lot. I can intuitively know when I am saying something right or wrong, and what sounds off, and what doesn't. I think it's important to spend time with it. Getting used to to MSA, or any language for that matter, is what anchors it in your mind and makes it yours. MSA's decline, from where I can see it, is akin to how the current generations are using less and less eloquent English, and probably other languages. If you look at any English book that was published some 100 years ago, there would be a degree of richness that you wouldn't find in a modern book today. However, not all current authors are like that, in fact, a lot of them have very strong command of the language and produce beautiful written work. Same for the Arab authors. For the general masses, I see this decline in language richness across the board, not just MSA. When I said learn dialects, I did not say learn only dialects. I said start first with a dialect, then branch out. Simply because it's easier to be able to connect to a native speaker with their normally spoken dialect, and then having access to people and media will actually make it easier for you to start focusing on MSA and being able to ask for resources and recommendations from natives. It is vital that one does learn MSA, no question about that, just like it is vital to learn kanji in order to read Japanese, and because you'll need MSA to read, widen your knowledge, and have an overall solid language. Think of MSA as another dialect, just like Egyptian, Levantine, Tunisian, etc. If you know Arabic in any dialect form, you'll be able to adapt faster and easier to MSA and any other dialect. You could definitely start right away with MSA, if your goal is ultimately to read books, watch formal events and news, or do graduate Middle Eastern/area studies where the focus is on Arabic. But if your goal is really an interest in all aspects of the culture, with all the variations between the different Arab countries, then learn both dialect and MSA. But start with a spoken dialect, because you'll have a much easier time reaching people. Why I said Egyptian isn't based on any bias of any sort, but because it's a dialect virtually understood by every Arab speaker. Tunisians, Syrians, the Gulf people, they all understand Egyptian, and can even speak it. Egyptians, on the other hand, will understand Levantine and Gulf, but will have a truly hard time making out Algerian or Moroccan, so if a learner speaks either of those, his efforts will be lost on Egyptian speakers. And Egyptian has more media. It's just a matter of getting the best bang for the buck. But if you want to go immediately to Lebanon, for instance, and have no interest whatsoever in Egypt, then by all means do learn Levantine right away. There is a slight variation between Lebanese and Syrian, just as a note. Levantine also has the added advantage, as do the Gulf dialects, of being much closer to MSA, and even employ lots of pure MSA words. Not so drastic, but certainly closer. Egyptians usually joke that they have corrupted Arabic with their dialect :D MSA will be understood a lot easier either way. It's basically another dialect. The only difference is that it's the only dialect that unifies all Arab speaking countries, spoken and written the same everywhere, as well as being the original form. At the end of the day, it's a matter of personal choice. Do what best aligns with your goals. @Serpent: You're welcome! Like hp230 said, sports commentators will use dialect in informal/local events, more MSA in formal, international ones, but I'm seeing dialects being increasingly used in football/soccer. Soccer/football is VERY popular in the Middle East. But anyway, they sometimes speak a mix of dialect and MSA, and usually the MSA is very clear because it's always referring to the context of the match, or describing/commenting on a certain action. Sometimes they also use mostly dialects, and when someone scores, they get so excited and they start using MSA to add to the drama of it all. @nnancydowns: You're welcome :) I have never been to Dearborn, but I do hear that's it's literally an Arab city. Which means you're bound to find more there than anywhere else. Michigan overall has a lot of Arabs. I believe Chicago does, too, Salt Lake City, Utah, and New York City, I believe, even has a Little Cairo in there, which is full of Egyptian-Americans. I have never been to any of them, though. I do have a friend who is married to a Syrian, and they have lived in Dearborn for some time. If you are interested, I could ask her for some recommendations about places to go, and things/books to buy in Dearborn. If there's anything specific regarding Arabic that you're interested in, you could let me know and I'll try to help out with it. I'm waiting for the teacher to get back to me regarding that Arabic book for foreign language learners. Noorart.com is a website that sells lots of Arabic learning books, readers, and materials. It's mostly targeting children and foreign learners, and the books are pretty culturally centered and secular. The Islamic books are listed in a separate collection/tab, so users can have the choice of what they want and what they want to avoid. The books are kind of expensive, though. The teacher I know used them here with the American kids to help them read. Some books have very nice stories and morals, some, especially the very beginning ones, have silly stories, but they do make you laugh. The readers are sold in sets of graded levels. I also know a series of books, Al-Maktaba Al-Khadraa, which have been around for a long time, and they have dozens of story books, from basic, all the way to advanced. They are not readers for foreign learners, but for natives, but they are truly wonderful, and you could still use them as readers should you like to do so. I'm not sure where to find them, though, but I'll have a look around. I grew up with those in my library, next to Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Nancy Drew, and a hundred other English books :D Now that I look back, I wish I had read as much Arabic. But my Arabic hasn't suffered (I think) and I'm already reading in it now anyway. Anyway, hope that was helpful. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4794 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 59 of 75 13 July 2015 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@nancydowns: I found many of the Al-Maktaba Al-Khadra books at Archive.org. They maybe the more advanced books though, or they may have the easier ones. I'll
search around the website. So nostalgic seeing some of them again, :') Here is the link. Hope you find them useful. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3919 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 60 of 75 13 July 2015 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Woodsei... Yay!!! Thank you soooo much! I am afraid that I hijacked this thread by asking for info to learn Arabic. But thank you sooo much for the
noorart.com suggestion and the link you gave, that is so awesome! I am starting with MSA because I have no need to learn Arabic. It is a purely academic pursuit because I have an interest. So I don't need to choose a dialect yet. I am hoping to learn MSA to a decent level, and then if I want to keep going, I will choose a dialect so that I can start conversing with people. I am working on the verbs right now. I used "Mastering Arabic I" and may get the second volume. I will probably try one of those children's books in your link in an intensive manner and see how I do. When I go to Dearborn, I will see what I can find, and I may try to visit the University bookstore, although it is summer now... If you or your friend know of any audio aimed at children, that would be very useful. If I ever get extended time in Detroit, I will definitely take advantage of the huge native population and find a tutor or language exchange partner. So I don't really have much to add to the theme of this thread, but in order to try to get my post on topic, I will say that for me, a middle American Christian, studying Arabic is definitely a step outside of the comfort zone because of the definite tie to Islam, and I think for many Americans, that's what they think of Arabic. But I am just enjoying the language for what it is, a beautiful, complex, historic language that won't let me go. Most people probably don't think of learning a language just for the language itself (except here!), and so anyone who finds out I am studying it wants to know when I am going to Arabia. : ) However, I have no plans right now to ever go to the Middle East... sure, if I can, that would be great, but I have other obligations and traveling there isn't feasible at this point. Also when people look at my study materials, the different alphabet turns them off right away. They say "I could never learn that." But if only they knew, learning the alphabet is the easy part, you ain't seen nothin' yet until you get into the verbs! : ) Arabic isn't a "cool" language right now in this country, which I think is partially the fault of the extremist fringe and the fact that there isn't any "cool" media coming from there, whereas Japanese and Korean both seem "cool" right now to learn, or at least to get involved in their media. The worst part about its "uncoolness" is that finding resources is more difficult.... but not impossible. I do tend to get the sensation of the hair standing up on the back of my neck when I see some of the things done in that part of the world, but last year, I got to meet a couple from Iraq, and it was wonderful to talk to them. I hate that I am so far away, so I will probably never see them again. They were from Baghdad, and she is very well educated and speaks excellent English. That is the face of Islam I wish that more Americans could see. Her family endured lots of hardships and had to flee, but talking to her was just simply talking to another human being! That is one fringe benefit of learning Arabic, it is causing me to step into situations I would never have been in before and to even get to meet and talk to people I would never have talked to before. So to me, it is "cool!" : ) Edited by nancydowns on 13 July 2015 at 7:11pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hp230 Tetraglot Newbie TunisiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3690 days ago 30 posts - 63 votes Speaks: German, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 61 of 75 13 July 2015 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
You are cool; I had a full smile on my face reading these last lines. RESPECT. You know, you have the spirit of a true language learner. I'm sure you will never regret learning Arabic, you clearly seem to be on the right path to do great in it. SO, Keep going. Woodsei, you just got me back to my childhood. Al-Maktaba Al-Khadra was one of my favorite collections, I don't know, maybe it's a little bit advanced, ( I remember teachers recommending them on our 3rd maybe 4th year at school). The publisher, Dar El-Maaref is a well-known one. I dug more in Archive.org, I found this book describing some world-known stories in Arabic for children here for those who are interested.I really have no experience looking for learning material, but, it seems that Archive.org doesn't provide results for arabic material unless you type your quest in Arabic. It looks like a rich site though. I never though such books existed on the Internet. Thank you Woodsei. As for my post, I just wanted to clear some points, I totally agree with what you wrote. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4547 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 62 of 75 14 July 2015 at 3:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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In terms of the number of native speakers to practice with, it seems to me that, in the
States, Levantine would be a more logical dialect choice than Egyptian. Arabic is on my list for the future, and I plan on learning Levantine first for that very reason. I wasn't aware that it was also closer to MSA, which is a powerful additional advantage indeed. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3919 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 63 of 75 15 July 2015 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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hp230 Thanks so much for your kind words and for your input in this thread. It is wonderful to have someone with native experience to give their
perspective. I'm sorry that language there is suffering. I think this global internet age is probably killing the level of language in many countries, but it can't be stopped now! People want to be entertained, so books aren't very literary anymore. (I'm speaking from the perspective of the US). Thanks so much for taking the time to look into some Arabic children's books. I looked at the link you gave, and that looks like a neat book! I am anxious for when I can look at an Arabic text and be able to understand it right away, But there are more words I am recognizing. Hope to add more words in the next few months, so that it would be easier to read some of the children's books.... slowly but surely. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6594 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 64 of 75 16 July 2015 at 1:17am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, that's kinda my point. When two languages are very similar, it's easy to overlook the minor differences - not because they're hard, but exactly because they're easy and don't hinder comprehension. Although I guess the speakers of the languages I mention may tend to maintain more contact with L1 than Arabic speakers with their native dialect when they move elsewhere. Edited by Serpent on 16 July 2015 at 1:18am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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