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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| lackinglatin Triglot Groupie United States randomwritingsetc.blRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 62 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, Modern Hebrew Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 15 16 March 2010 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Also, William: beware of your current strategy. I have a friend who studied Egyptian Arabic before coming here, and his listening comprehension in Levantine was *very* low here. He's having to learn listening form almost scratch, constantly missing things, needing people to repeat things, having people not understand what he says. Sure, if you give a speech in Egyptian Arabic, from what I understand people will pick it up, but the short phrases in sentences use totally different slang and sound different. It will be a big task to switch from Saudi, which is even more distant if I understand correctly, to Levantine.
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| Ikasu Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 5612 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: French, English*, Arabic (Levantine)*, Spanish, Greek | Message 10 of 15 16 March 2010 at 12:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Yes, but it will be worthwhile. Now you can follow Arab media in MSA. It's good that you have Arabs you can practice with. Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 11 of 15 16 March 2010 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Hejazi is apparently spoken some way into Jordan as well as Saudi Arabia, and strikes me as being relatively close to MSA (I stress "relatively", as no Arabic colloquial is very close). I have also noticed features that remind me of Egyptian and even Iraqi Arabic.
I have made some headway in the FSI Hejazi Arabic (up to lesson 13) and am reluctant to switch, unless an MSA or Levantine programme came to my attention that was accessible over the Internet and free. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| abitdodgy Newbie Brazil Joined 5367 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes | Message 12 of 15 16 March 2010 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I'm a native Arabic speaker! I would not learn a particular dialect of Arabic, to tell
you the truth. I would start with MSA (modern standard Arabic) as this will guarantee that you can communicate any where in the Arab world, and with nearly all Arabic speakers. The various dialects will be a "learn-as-you-go," and while there are tremendous differences between MSA and dialects, the root of the word will invariably be the same. Furthermore, dialects by definition lack grammatical structure and usage rules; and the rules and structures they do employ are derived straight from MSA. And thus by definition you can not "study" them. Even if you do, you will have to learn the rules of MSA. MSA is also very close to Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian, Syrian, and Egyptian dialects. The gulf dialect is also closely related, but the differences in pronunciation are greater. In short? Learn MSA. It will give you the spring board to learn any of the dialects available (the exception is north west Africa, where their dialect is so incredibly different that understanding them in nearly impossible for people for the Levant). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 7097 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 13 of 15 21 March 2010 at 9:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Learning an Arabic dialect is not an easy task if you don't have MSA from which to jump. Since there aren't good dictionaries or learning materials for anything higher than the basic level (Pimsleur, FSI, any online lessons you find, etc) you kind of have to go it alone.
I learned MSA in college and wanted to learn some of the dialects because I felt bad claiming that I spoke Arabic when I couldn't understand what Arabs were saying unless it was on the news or in an official setting. It's a long and difficult process, but I watched a lot of Arabic TV shows which can be found at http://shahed.mbc.net/mediamanager. I probably only understood like 10 - 20% of what was being said at first, but I just kept on watching them. I believe that even if you don't think you're gaining anything from it because the majority is going over your head that your brain is still working and absorbing the language. Songs were also a big part of learning the dialects. Song lyrics are pretty much the only transcripts that you can find of dialect Arabic. You can find lots of audio and video files in dialect, but they will never have a transcript with them. I've started making transcripts of the Levantine and Egyptian dialects on my site and they seem to be well received. I assume lots of people run into the same problems I had when I started trying to learn more about the dialects. I started learning MSA in 2007 and I still don't understand everything that's said in TV shows, but I'm much better than I was and I continue to work at it and I continue to see improvement. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5811 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 14 of 15 21 March 2010 at 11:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Not to lecture you about your own language, abitdodgy, but there's a lot that isn't really accurate in what you said.
This is just patently false. I'm speaking with the experience of an American who is living in Egypt and studying Arabic when I say that MSA does not, emphatically does not, allow you to communicate with nearly all Arabic speakers. In fact, it only helps in communication with a very few. Sure, if I speak MSA, I can usually get people to understand me. But their reply will invariably be in dialect. Sometimes my close friends will give me a synonym in MSA if I look like I didn't understand the ECA word, but that's about it. You do get a little benefit, but it could hardly be called communication.
This is also fairly suspect. In a lot of cases, the root of a colloquial word can be found in MSA, but there are also quite a few words from the various substrata languages that just don't fit into the nice mathematical format of written Arabic. And in terms of the words used most often, the sound shifts from MSA are often so dramatic that the word might was well be from Berber.
This is just impossible. All languages have grammatical structure and usage rules, "by definition". If they did not, communication would be impossible. Certainly, the dialects are for the most part not well-codified or as logically-designed as al-fuSHa but they unquestionably do have rules that cover most grammatical structures also present in MSA. And honestly, though many of those rules are derived straight from MSA, many of them are not. The Egyptian imperfect verb system, for example, could hardly be called an MSA derivative.
Maybe this is true from an Arab perspective, but I definitely don't feel it's that way for a foreign learner. I still feel like I'm studying two languages every day, and I've been at this long and hard for a while now. And so far, every Arab I have discussed this with, barring a few extremely educated people at universities, has claimed that his dialect is closest to MSA. They can't all be right.
I actually do agree with you that one should start with MSA. It does help on the road to learning a dialect, and simply in terms of resources available it's really the only option. The dialects are to some extent related to, and in some cases derived from, MSA, and as you need both to be fluent in Arabic it makes sense to follow the path of least resistance. Nevertheless, this idea that the dialects are all just badly-used MSA really bothers me. It's very unhelpful to learners, who basically get punched in the face when they land in Cairo for the first time and realize that they are completely unable to communicate with Arabs after years of study; it's offensive to write off rich and complex languages entirely as "slang"; and it's just not true. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 15 of 15 21 March 2010 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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In my present circumstances, I remain most impressed by the FSI Arabic and its stress on Hejazi, the most widespread colloquial Arabic of Saudi Arabia. After pausing for a few days and checking out MSA resources, I didn't find anything better. It is also possible that I might find something better, and more relevant to me, by the time I get to the end. But I like how FSI does it - some people find the drilling grim, but with something like Arabic it may be the best way to do it.
I am most interested in the spoken language at this point, and am not convinced that speaking MSA won't make me sound like a television presenter reading out the news. In December, I met a Palestinian woman from Gaza. I tried out some of the odds and ends of Egyptian or Iraqi Arabic I had learned. She understood them but would say, "What we say is ..." I also watched an Arab from Turkey talking to Palestinians. Basically, ethnic Arabs from Turkey (of whom there are several hundred thousand, mostly living near the Syrian border) don't have MSA, as Turkish media and the education system don't encourage Arabic, except for some religious establishments and outlets. So Turkey's Arabs speak Arabic colloquial forms as a home language, and don't have a "higher" form of Arabic. However, the Turkish Arab seemed to have no trouble communicating. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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