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What is the Best Arabic Method? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6069 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 17 of 27 06 January 2011 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't know if it is the best, as I have no experience of the others, but I have made a fair bit of headway with the FSI Hejazi course. I am now reviewing it as well as working on the FSI Written Arabic course. It will take more, much more, to arrive at Arabic fluency, but I think I am well on the way.
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| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6026 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 18 of 27 06 January 2011 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Curious, have you been able to speak to and be understood by non Saudis using the Hijazi Arabic you have learned? I have heard it is a relatively well understood dialect by non-Saudis. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6069 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 19 of 27 07 January 2011 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Palestinians and Iraqis have understood the simple phrases I use, and it will be a while before I can say complicated things. I have been "corrected" a few times. For example, in answer to "how are you?", I said ana zeen to a Palestinian woman, and she replied, "We say ana mnii9a." She understood ana zeen, however, which is a Saudi/Iraqi way of saying "I am fine." She merely put forward her own dialect's alternative. Hejazi does seem to be a widely understood colloquial. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6026 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 20 of 27 12 January 2011 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's interesting! Yeah, L evantine and Egyptian Arabic speakers have told me that unless a speaker has a really obscure dialect ( or is from the Maghreb) they can communicate pretty easily across dialects. As a side note, my Ahlan wa Sahlan 2nd Edition just arrived!! :-) My current Arabic plan of attack is to try to do one lesson of the new Assimil Arabic ( the new French one) course each day. I have also re-visited the DLI MSA course and I must say that it seems MUCH better going through it the 2nd time around. There are a ton of audio drills that "get me speaking". I will try to use Ahlan wa Sahlan (2nd edition) & get through roughly a chapter a week. Ahlan wa Sahlan to me seems much more user friendly for self-learners than Al Kitaab which seems more geared for classroom use. This puts me at about an hour of Arabic study time a day. I'm already finding that I can understand more and more of Arabic newscasts ( like the Al Jazeera podcasts) than I could even a month ago. OK, still not very much but I can definitely pick out a few words I recognize in their sentences. .... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6069 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 21 of 27 13 January 2011 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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That does seem to be the major gulf in the Arabic colloquials - between Eastern dialects and Maghrebi ones.
I have mentioned this before on this forum, but there is an interesting account given by Vladimir Peniakoff of his efforts to recruit Libyan Bedouin to supporting the Allied cause in WWII. Peniakoff was Belgian-born, of Russian descent, and he spoke colloquial Egyptian Arabic, which he learned while working in Egypt before the war. He made a speech in Egyptian colloquial and was understood. When one chieftain later declaimed some Classical Arabic poetry by the campfire, Peniakoff could not understand his language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| dip Diglot Newbie Joined 5405 days ago 7 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Romanian*, English Studies: Italian, Persian | Message 22 of 27 17 January 2011 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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if you plan to properly use your arabic and don't wanna sound like Shakespeare pick up a course based on a spoken dialect(eastern/levantine or egyptian) ex this one is great for levantine www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=5415
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6069 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 23 of 27 18 January 2011 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Edited: slight correction - mniiHa, not mnii9a 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6026 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 24 of 27 21 January 2011 at 3:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
That does look like a good course. I'm bogged down in Arabic courses right now though!! :-) The Cornell website has all the DVD clips online. They are good fun even without the book! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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