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Spoken arabic: Learn MSA or dialect? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| geirtbr Groupie Norway Joined 6467 days ago 83 posts - 90 votes  Speaks: Norwegian* Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 8 05 July 2010 at 11:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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If the goal is to learn arabic as it is used orally in everyday life, how much effort should one put on learning MSA compared to a dialect?
- Should one start with the dialects? Or are there an advantage on first learning MSA and then dialect? Or both in paralell? If so, when should one start learning the dialect? I would like to hear some opinions on this. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5507 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 8 05 July 2010 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This question has been answered before. There are some nice, clear and pretty nutty answers ... somewhere on this
forum. When you should ask me I will look it up. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5130 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 3 of 8 05 July 2010 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's certainly true, but according to your profile you study Arabic, too. :-) So what's your advice? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| arturs Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 5081 days ago 278 posts - 408 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English | Message 4 of 8 05 July 2010 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It depends for what purposes You are learning the language. If it's just for fun/general knowledge, the go for MSA.
For example, I'm interested in countries like UAE, Qatar and Lebanon, so I'm more into learning Gulf or Levantine Arabic. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5507 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 8 05 July 2010 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
First, study MSA. Edited by staf250 on 05 July 2010 at 7:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cetacea Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie United States booh.com Joined 5134 days ago 80 posts - 163 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Arabic (Yemeni), Arabic (Written) Studies: French | Message 6 of 8 05 July 2010 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you don’t want to learn how to read and write, starting a dialect. But you will never get beyond the level of an illiterate native speaker even if you reach fluency.
If you want to learn how to read and write, AND how to speak, then MSA is a good place to start. Personally I think you should learn MSA in the classroom, and dialect on the street when you get a chance to live in an Arab country, but I know a lot of people here disagree with me. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| WuTongue Quintilingual Heptaglot Newbie Kuwait dzp.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5069 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, Arabic (classical)*, Arabic (Iraqi)*, Arabic (Gulf)*, Arabic (Egyptian)*, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 8 05 July 2010 at 10:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Arabic, like a few other languages, is a complex language and has many different aspects that need learning and mastering. Concentrating on only one of them (speaking and listening for example) might prove to be difficult since you will not be familiar with the basics of grammar. As you might be already familiar, grammar in Arabic is pretty complex but nothing is impossible.
There are some factors that can speed up your learning and can even help you overcome certain obstacles in this language such as living in an Arabic country among others. This is just my opinion but I think Arabic, like Chinese, should be learned fully to be able to practice and use it in a normal fashion. Look at it this way: If you want to build a huge mansion but can only afford to build something small like the car garage. No matter how much you try to economize on building the mansion, you will still end up with the car garage only. You CAN learn just the conversation aspect of Arabic but I'm not sure how easy/difficult that would be without immersing yourself into the other aspects (A car engine needs more than just fuel to operate). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| CaucusWolf Senior Member United States Joined 5082 days ago 191 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese | Message 8 of 8 06 July 2010 at 12:13am | IP Logged | |||||
I think you can immerse yourself in it easily by listening to News in your target language (even if you don't understand it.)and especially in MSA since it isn't spoken on the street. I admit I wish I had someone to help me sometimes but If you don't have to money to travel you just don't. I'd say to stick with it and don't give up I know I wont. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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