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Request for FSI Arabic digitized

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braveb
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 Message 17 of 45
01 April 2006 at 8:55pm | IP Logged 
Well, if anyone is willing to set up a FTP I'll send over the files on weekends. I recall each unit being somewhere around 15 min long. One of these days I'll spend an entire afternoon copying the 8 hours plus analog to digital format. Just so some of you know, the MSA course is nothing like the other basic courses when it comes to the learning format. I personally think Linguaphone and Assimil are more user friendly.
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Malcolm
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 Message 18 of 45
02 April 2006 at 3:28am | IP Logged 
I agree; the FSI MSA course (Modern Written Arabic) is not like the FSI Basic or Programmatic courses. It's more of a graded reader with audio. I hope everyone isn't expecting an "FSI Spanish" or a "Platiquemos" for MSA.
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Linas
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 Message 19 of 45
02 April 2006 at 3:38am | IP Logged 
Malcolm wrote:
I agree; the FSI MSA course (Modern Written Arabic) is not like the FSI Basic or Programmatic courses. It's more of a graded reader with audio. I hope everyone isn't expecting an "FSI Spanish" or a "Platiquemos" for MSA.


Since MSA is only written/read and heard on newscasts, but not usually spoken, the graded reader with audio is the best possible thing to learn it. In order to be fluent in Arabic, however, one shall go for FSI Basic Saudi Arabic. It is based on Hejazi dialect which has very conservative vocalism(it retains the most of MSA vowels and does not change or omit them) in comparison with other Arabic dialects, and has a vocabulary sufficiently similar to Egyptian Arabic as well as to MSA. So that this is a form of Arabic the best to begin with. Later you can easily switch to either MSA or another dialect if you want.
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patuco
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 Message 20 of 45
02 April 2006 at 6:29am | IP Logged 
I'd always heard that the "best" dialect to learn was the Egyptian one since it is the most widely spread due to the numerous films produced in Egypt.
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Linas
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 Message 21 of 45
02 April 2006 at 9:05am | IP Logged 
patuco wrote:
I'd always heard that the "best" dialect to learn was the Egyptian one since it is the most widely spread due to the numerous films produced in Egypt.


Difficult to say why FSI have not sellected not Egyptian, but Hejazi. As I have said Hejazi is the most conservative in phonetics and vocabulary. I have no sound samples of Hejazi, but it is possible that it is pronounced more slowly and clearly than Egytian. The pronounciation of Egyptians as I have heard is fast and not very clear.

Very important thing is that Hejaz has been the place of Muslim pilgrimage, so that Hejazi people had to accomodate to other Arabs and non-Arab classical Arabic speaking Muslims and speak more slowly and clearly, using more generally understood words. This surely left an imprint on the dialect.
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braveb
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 Message 22 of 45
02 April 2006 at 12:05pm | IP Logged 
Probably because there is more U.S. interest in Saudi Arabia than Egypt.
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Linas
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 Message 23 of 45
02 April 2006 at 12:42pm | IP Logged 
braveb wrote:
Probably because there is more U.S. interest in Saudi Arabia than Egypt.


There is much US interest both in Egypt and in Saudi Arabi, as well in other parts of Arabic world, so I do not think that it was a reason for choice of this particular dialect.

By the way, the Slade Harrell's program of the Georgetown University have chosen Moroccan, Syrian and Iraqi again omitting Egyptian. Maybe Slade Harrell had plans for Egyptian as well, but his untimely death prevented him from doing that.
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patuco
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 Message 24 of 45
02 April 2006 at 6:06pm | IP Logged 
Linas wrote:
Very important thing is that Hejaz has been the place of Muslim pilgrimage, so that Hejazi people had to accomodate to other Arabs and non-Arab classical Arabic speaking Muslims and speak more slowly and clearly, using more generally understood words. This surely left an imprint on the dialect.

You could be right...at least, it makes sense to me!

Edited by patuco on 02 April 2006 at 6:08pm



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