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Modern Standard Arabic worth studying? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| The Side Effect Newbie United States Joined 5819 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 17 of 27 03 January 2009 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Learn Modern Standard. It'll open up an incredible body of literature and there are more resources to learn it. Edited by The Side Effect on 03 January 2009 at 7:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 7098 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 18 of 27 19 January 2009 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here's my advice to you. Study MSA if you plan to learn more than just 1 dialect. An analogy would be that learning MSA is like learning Latin. MSA will make it easier for you to learn the dialects just like knowing Latin makes it easier to learn Italian and Spanish. It's not a perfect analogy since the Arabic dialects are much much closer to MSA than Italian and Spanish are to Latin, but it's the same principal.
I agree with what multilingual said. If you know MSA all Arabs will understand you, but you won't be able to understand them. You need to only be able to understand the dialects and you can speak MSA. MSA is a good basis to branch to the dialects, plus there is more material for learning MSA than there is for the dialects. I'm trying to learn Egyptian right now and I would give my right eye for a decent dictionary. Hans Wehr is a kick ass dictionary for MSA. If anyone knows of a good Egyptian or Iraqi dictionary please let me know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Feculent Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6162 days ago 136 posts - 144 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German | Message 19 of 27 24 January 2009 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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How far apart are the dialects (more specifically the Egyptian dialect) from MSA?
How hard is it to learn how to understand another dialect if you can speak MSA? I just find this interesting because I might try and learn it in future but was put off by the fact that to make it useful it seems like you almost had to learn at least two languages but... 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 20 of 27 24 January 2009 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know much Arabic but I have heard that Moroccan and Algerian Arabic are especially distant. Egyptian Arabic not so much, and Levantine and Gulf Arabic closer, but all are distinct from MSA.
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| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6570 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 21 of 27 25 January 2009 at 1:30am | IP Logged | ||
All dialects are generally seen to be more distant from MSA than they are from each other. Sedentary dialects are generally more removed than Bedwin and mountain dialects regardless of location, but country dialects are more distant than urban dialects especially in the Levant and Egypt. Western dialects (Maghrebi, etc..) are generally perceived to be more distant than eastern dialects, but to me personally Tunisian Arabic sounds a lot closer to classical Arabic than any Eastern dialect, so I don't know. Egyptian Arabic is generally considered fairly distant from MSA. This wikipedia article has a nice summary of differences from MSA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Arabic I asked the second question to a girl who's been studying MSA in complete isolation from dialects. To her Egyptian and Levantine (the only dialects she occasionally got exposed to) were understandable, but they sounded "wrong" whatever that means. 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 22 of 27 28 January 2009 at 9:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Occasionally the differences have served as a shibboleth, with fatal consequences. In the Lebanese Civil War (1975-76), Christian Falangist militia (Arabic-speaking) would stop people at checkpoints and ask the question, "What is red and juicy and good in salads?" If the answer was banadura ("tomato" in Lebanese Arabic) the person would be allowed to go. but if the answer was bandura, the person was killed, as that pronunciation gave the person away as being a Palestinian. Edited by William Camden on 28 January 2009 at 9:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Goldstein Newbie United States Joined 5788 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 24 of 27 28 January 2009 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is the only place I found mention of the "tomato test"
http://snappedshot.com/categories/23-Lebanon (bottom of the page) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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