|
 |
Is Arabic so difficult or is the methods? | ||
Tags: Difficulty | Arabic | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| michi Nonaglot Newbie Austria Joined 5299 days ago 33 posts - 57 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese Studies: Turkish, Arabic (Written), Serbo-Croatian, Indonesian, Japanese | Message 17 of 20 25 June 2010 at 8:40am | IP Logged | |||||
What a pity! I got a real good impression of the language schools in Sana'a and read good references too. I wish I would have decided to come to Sana'a a few years ago. Now I will stick to Damascus. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 7095 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 18 of 20 26 June 2010 at 1:37am | IP Logged | |||||
This is a problem that I had when learning MSA as well. Everyday topics are dealt with using dialect so it's hard to teach them in MSA. I went to Jordan and told a taxi to در يسار (dur yasaar) which is MSA and they weren't sure what I meant. Now I know the right thing to say would have been لف شمال (lif shmaal). I was disappointed that I could talk about politics and social topics like abortion and honor killing but normal everyday things are largely ignored in MSA classes because MSA just doesn't deal with those topics. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6270 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 19 of 20 26 June 2010 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
I have made some headway with Saudi (Hejazi) Arabic. With that, you would have been able to communicate in that particular situation at least - the Hejazi for "turn left" is laff shimaal. Perhaps other Hejazi features wouldn't be so similar to Jordan colloquial, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cetacea Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie United States booh.com Joined 5322 days ago 80 posts - 163 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Arabic (Yemeni), Arabic (Written) Studies: French | Message 20 of 20 05 July 2010 at 7:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I remember reading an article a while back written by either one of the authors of Kitab Al Kitab or someone defending it, saying that this book is meant to teach students academic Arabic, therefore it doesn’t cover daily expressions which according to him should be learned from supplementary materials such as the dialect lessons. I’m all for serious academic study, but I still think students should learn “I want an apple” before “United Nations”.
Teaching Arabic as a foreign language is such a new field that there is a lot to be researched and developed. I still think that kitab Al Kitab is the best English textbook out there despite its flaws. Many students reach an advanced level by combining the book and an immersion period in an Arab country.
In MSA, dur means to turn around / make a U-turn, and dur yasaar means “make a u-turn to the left” that's probably why the driver was confused. Luf is both MSA and dialect, and “luf yasaar or shimaal” is the correct command and can be understood in any Arab country. I wouldn’t dismiss native speaker’s ability to understand MSA so quickly. If a literate Arab, not necessarily well educated, can’t understand my MSA, 95% of the time is because of mistakes on my part. After all it is their language. The only place where I met Arabs who can’t even understand MSA is in rural mountain areas of Yemen where there is no road access, and the Empty Quarter. Unless you plan to visit these areas, you will be able to survive just fine on your MSA. 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
