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Modern Standard Arabic worth studying? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| flydream777 Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6492 days ago 77 posts - 102 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: German, Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Greek, Hungarian, Armenian, Irish, Italian | Message 1 of 27 17 November 2007 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
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Is Modern Standard Arabic really worth studying?
Can EVERYONE in the Arabic world understand it or just "most"? When one speaks MSA, does it sound robotic or old fashioned? Is it the version that newspapers, books, and TV/radio are in? OVERLYING QUESTION: Should I study MSA or one of the dialects (like Saudi)? Edited by flydream777 on 17 November 2007 at 12:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| FaWzY Triglot Newbie Egypt Joined 6218 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English, Arabic (Written)*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 27 17 November 2007 at 4:57am | IP Logged |
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Well, MSA is definitely important, it is the literary form of Arabic, it's the language of literature, newspapers, some TV and radio too.
Everybody in the Arab world can understand it, but it'd definitely sound pretty weird if you went around the streets talking to people in it. If you want to learn Arabic only to communicate with people, then you'd have to learn a dialect, and the most useful dialect to learn is Egyptian (I'm not biased, really :)) Egyptian is the most spoken dialect of Arabic, the most widely understood, and is considered by some non-Egyptians to be chic. But it's really widely understood everywhere in the Arab world due to the popularity of Egyptian movies, TV series and songs (also many non-Egyptian Arabs sing in Egyptian) Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6288 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 27 19 November 2007 at 2:41am | IP Logged |
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Fawzy,
Where would you classify Gulf Arabic, or Arabic as spoken in Dubai? Currently, I am studying "Gulf Arabic", but I don't know where in line this is with the other forms of Arabic. Where would you classify it closest to, MSA, Levantine, Egyptian (although it's geographic proximity makes this unlikely), etc?? This is the Arabic I am primarily interested in, and I fear that I may gather all the wrong resources because of these differences. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 4 of 27 19 November 2007 at 3:32am | IP Logged |
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Arabic is one of my next candidate languages (Kurdish, esp. Kurmanji, is another but study materials are hard to find, though another thread lists some).
The problem with Arabic is, MSA or a colloquial dialect? I went to an evening class where the teacher in the first term was a Lebanese Palestinian, so it was that colloquial. The next term it was a Sudanese doing the teaching, so we were taught the Sudanese colloquial variety. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sumabeast Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6927 days ago 212 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 27 20 November 2007 at 5:09pm | IP Logged |
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if you want to sit around with Arab friends in conversation, then learn their dialect.
but if you want the full range of communication, then you must learn MSA. all but the most illiterate village dwellers will understand MSA. the problem is many Arabs understand MSA well enough but they often cannot produce MSA speech without drifting into their dialect variety. Gulf Arabs will easily understand MSA and often converse well in the formal language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6570 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 6 of 27 21 November 2007 at 9:41pm | IP Logged |
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The short answer is: Yes study MSA.
In detail: Almost everyone, even the illiterate will understand MSA. Most will be able to write it well, but I personally don't know anyone who can maintain a conversation in MSA for more than 5 minutes (unless they are reading something). Does it sound robotic and old fashioned? Totally! The only case where it sounds rather natural is (curiously) in songs and liturgy. Where is what used? As a rule of thumb, anything that's written is most probably in MSA. Anything that's said is in a register of a dialect. MSA is the language of almost all newspapers and magazines. On radio and TV it's more complicated. Almost all movies, talk shows, soaps, etc.. are in dialects. The news is more complex, for example on Al-Arabiya the news hour is in strict MSA, but in talk shows and interviews the host will almost always stick to MSA while guests drift wildly depending on their moods. What to do? Learn MSA, it's a common denominator, and you will need it. Then learn any dialect. It doesn't really matter which, but you might as well pick an exposed dialect. Saudi should be fine. After you master one dialect and MSA you would be surprised at how quickly you pick up others. One example is a big brother kind of reality show they did on an Arabic channel a ways back. They had people from Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan in the house. The first show was hilarious, I couldn't understand half of what was being said (at least) and the people in the show spent most of the time asking each other to repeat what they just said. But 5 episodes later I actually found I could understand Tunisian and Iraqi Arabic (reportedly extremely divergent) without much difficulty. So don't let all the dialects confuse you, just pick one and stick with it. But in my opinion, unless you have a very specific region of interest and have no interest in literacy, MSA is an absolute must. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6662 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 7 of 27 22 November 2007 at 4:04pm | IP Logged |
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I think that unless one has a lot of opportunites to speak with Arabs, MSA makes the most sense to learn. You can pick up a book anytime and practice MSA, and your language improvement can progress. If you learn MSA first, learning its grammar will go more smoothly because there won't be interference from closely related sounds and words in the dialect. And many Arabs can speak a mixture of MSA and a dialect without too much difficulty. It may not sound as clear as 'textbook' Arabic, but with a knowledge of MSA and a little bit of practice in a dialect, it should not be too difficult to understand native speakers, assuming that they are at least trying to speak with some MSA. Not all native speakers change their language to sound more formal, but you would be surprised how many can speak in a somewhat formal style if you try to engage them.
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| flydream777 Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6492 days ago 77 posts - 102 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: German, Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Greek, Hungarian, Armenian, Irish, Italian | Message 8 of 27 23 November 2007 at 1:13am | IP Logged |
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Thanks a lot, that really helps.
Anyone familiar with the Rosetta Stone Arabic (which teaches MSA correct)? Is it a good program to use or are there better? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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