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tw561
Newbie
United States
Joined 4541 days ago
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Italian
| Message 1 of 10 03 May 2013 at 5:36pm | IP Logged |
I'm very curious about Arabic. After mastering Spanish and reaching an intermediate
stage in Italian, I have decided it would be best if I explored a language outside of the
romance languages...just for my own sake of learning more about another language and
culture to do business with globally.
Is it possible to learn MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) through self study? I have an
assortment of old Arabic textbooks my friend from Morocco (which I plan on visiting the
country with them next year!) loaned me, but seeing that Moroccan's use the Darija
dialect and don't use MSA with everyday communication, I'm not sure how useful this would
be to study? Is it best to study MSA and then learn the spoken variety of Moroccan
Arabic/Darija? Or should I dive right into Darija without prior knowledge of MSA?
1 person has voted this message useful
| Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
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Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English
| Message 2 of 10 04 May 2013 at 3:10pm | IP Logged |
In general, the opinion seems that it's better to learn MSA first, unless you're very sure you're going to be limited to Arabic speakers from Morocco only.
Additionally, it's very probable that the textbooks are for MSA, since:
1) it's the language the foreigners are taught unless they specifically ask for the dialect
2) it's the language they learn at school and use on the TV in Arabic countries.\
1 person has voted this message useful
| Paco
Senior Member
Hong Kong
Joined 4088 days ago
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Speaks: Cantonese*
| Message 3 of 10 04 May 2013 at 7:59pm | IP Logged |
I think the following threads will be valuable to you.
Common Spoken Arabic
Discussion about MSA versus dialects
Arabic study advice
Advice on where to start and learning materials
Arabic overview
Discussion about the Arabic language, where to start, and learning materials
Edited by Paco on 04 May 2013 at 7:59pm
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| tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4518 days ago
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| Message 4 of 10 04 May 2013 at 11:51pm | IP Logged |
It's possible to learn any language through self-study, given you have the discipline and
motivation to find speakers of your target language online.
I am no expert on the MSA vs dialect discussion, but if I were to study Arabic, I'd do
dialect first. Just so I could speak with people. People rarely speak pure MSA. (And that
dialect would be Levantine.)
Edited by tarvos on 04 May 2013 at 11:52pm
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| kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
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justpaste.it/kanewai
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| Message 5 of 10 05 May 2013 at 3:05am | IP Logged |
As the discussions Paco linked to show, there is absolutely no agreement, here or any any
language site, on whether to start with MSA or the actual spoken language.
I'm in the dialect camp, and agree with Tarvos that Levantine is probably the best to
start with. It has the best resources, and is the closest to MSA.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| fiolmattias
Triglot
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geocities.com/fiolmaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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| Message 6 of 10 05 May 2013 at 3:20pm | IP Logged |
kanewai wrote:
Levantine ....is the closest to MSA.
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Not really
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=615365
3 persons have voted this message useful
| Paco
Senior Member
Hong Kong
Joined 4088 days ago
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Speaks: Cantonese*
| Message 7 of 10 05 May 2013 at 4:17pm | IP Logged |
Let me summarise briefly what I have read in this forum.
MSA first if:
a) you want to read
b) you want to learn more than 1 dialect ultimately
c) you have no preference for either dialect: you just want to get into the Arabic
world
Everything written is in MSA, and most official stuff are in MSA. You would be
understood by most Arabic people to a certain extent because quite a lot of them have
at least passive exposure to MSA, but most would respond in dialects. MSA has the most
resources.
A particular dialect first if:
a) you happen to have ample opportunities to speak to people of that dialect
b) you are learning Arabic in an Arabic country where that dialect is spoken
c) the primary goal of you is to learn that dialect to talk to friends or you love that
country in particular
If I were to learn the Arabic language (will do it but not now), given I would be
learning auto-didactically at home, and my primary goal is to read, I will commence
with MSA. But, if fortunately, I have the privilege to go for an immersion, I will
SIMULTANEOUSLY learn MSA and the dialect spoken there. Afterall, dialects are of little
use (and you cannot develop and maintain them efficiently) when you do not have access
to the particular people and media products.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| napoleon
Tetraglot
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India
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| Message 8 of 10 05 May 2013 at 4:30pm | IP Logged |
I'm afraid there's no simple answer to whether you should start with MSA or with a dialect. It really depends on what you want and on your personal preferences.
Although, if you are learning it from home and not in an Arabic speaking environment, it might be easier to get access to resources in MSA. Don't forget that all the news is in MSA. That makes learning it pretty important in my book.
I manged to unearth an old post that makes for interesting reading:
daristani wrote:
...
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Colloquial Arabic: What Is It and How Does One Learn It?
Editor's Note: This first of a two part article will deal with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA).
by Howard D. Rowland*
*Graduate of 18-month DLI Russian course (1961-62), DLI Russian instructor (1973-77), DLI Arabic instructor (1984-87, 1990-99), Ph.D. in Arabic studies from U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor (1971)
Anyone who has studied Arabic and been familiar with it for any length of time definitely knows the following two things about it: 1) It is quite a difficult language to learn, and 2) It differs sharply from most other languages in that it is characterized by what is known as “diglossia,” that is, its literate native speakers use one form of Arabic as their written language, but quite a different form of Arabic as their everyday spoken language.
Of course, virtually all the world’s major languages have a gap of this sort, especially between the educated classes and those on the lower social, economic, and educational levels of society. But in nearly all cases the educated natives of the languages fluently and habitually speak—either normally or, if required by circumstances—the high-level, educated version of their language which is used for literary purposes. Thus political affairs pundits in the U.S. being interviewed on American TV speak almost exactly the same educated standard American English that is found in the books that they write and most U.S. college graduates speak, to a reasonable degree, a form of literate, grammatically correct, educated American English that is quite uniform throughout the country and differs only slightly in terms of regional pronunciation and intonation.
Arabic, however, because of its unique and very long history as a major world language, and because its speakers are dispersed over a very big area of the Earth’s surface, has evolved quite differently in terms of the forms of the language used in response to the situations in which they are employed.
There is, first of all, the written Arabic language which Arabs generally call al-lugha al-fusha (the eloquent language) and which is usually known in English as Classical Arabic (the language of the Koran, pre-Islamic poetry, and medieval and pre-modern writings) or Modern Standard Arabic (“MSA” for short) which, in terms of its grammar and vocabulary, is basically the same as Classical Arabic, but with more modern vocabulary, usages, and styles of expression.
This written language, in a highly standardized form, has been in use for all literary purposes throughout the Arab world since early medieval times and is essentially the same language today as it was 1,500 years ago. And this same ancient language is still used today for all written and official oral communication in nearly all situations that call for the use of “formal” language in an organized presentation.
But in addition to this written Arabic language, which all educated Arabs have at their command, there also exist the spoken Arabic colloquial dialects. These varieties of spoken Arabic all differ greatly from the written language and also differ from each other to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how geographically distant the native speakers are from each other. Thus a Syrian from Damascus will have no problem at all talking to a Jordanian from Amman or a Lebanese from Beirut. However, if this same Syrian has never met an Iraqi or an Egyptian before, he will have some some problems understanding the speech of someone from Baghdad or Cairo, but in general will be able to successfully communicate with him. But if he tries talking his Syrian dialect to someone from Casablanca, Morocco who speaks only the Moroccan Arabic dialect, he will certainly either find it quite difficult to understand him or throw up his hands and give up, realizing that they simply cannot understand each other’s dialect and have to resort to speaking in MSA, if they both can speak it, or even try communicating in English or French.
These regional or local spoken Arabic dialects are used by Arabs of all walks of life—regardless of class or educational level—for all informal communication situations in everyday life. However, utterances in the dialects are almost never found in writing, except in the case of satirical political cartoons in newspapers or occasionally in the dialogue portion of works of fiction by certain writers, particularly Egyptians.
Sometimes the two versions of Arabic get “mixed up” with each other. For example, an educated Arab having an informal discussion with his peers, normally in colloquial Arabic, might occasionally resort to using expressions or even entire sentences or utterances in MSA in order to add emphasis to what he is saying, making it sound more like an “official statement.” Or a person on TV being interviewed may not have such a good oral command of MSA, so he might “throw in” a lot of colloquialisms or usages from the spoken language which, strictly speaking, are not customarily allowed in a formal interview situation.
The more educated the discourse or the more “literary,” “scientific,” or “academic” the topic of discussion is, the fewer differences there will be in the forms and vocabulary of the written and colloquial versions of the utterances involved. For example, the newspaper headline I’m looking at right now, which is from the January, 2008 issue of The New York Times, reads as follows: “U.S. Announces Criminal Inquiry into CIA Tapes” I would translate that into Arabic (MSA, of course!) as:
“tu’lin al-wilayat al-muttahida tahqiqan jina’iyan
fi shara’it wakalat al-mukhabarat al-markaziya”
If an Iraqi journalist wanted to orally pass this information on to a colleague, his colloquial version would hardly differ from what the headline in MSA would be, that is, he might well say:
“il-wilayat il-muttahida ti’lin tahqiq jina’i
b-shara’it wakalt il-mukhabarat il-markaziya”
But then his colleague might reply in the Iraqi dialect, saying something like:
“sh-gilit? sudug rah yisawwun tahqiq hassa?
khal-da-nfukk ir-radyo. yimkin rah-nisma’ fadd khabar jidid ‘ala hash-shi”
Which means: “What did you say? Is it true that they are going to do an inquiry now? Let’s turn on the radio. Maybe we’ll hear some (new) news item about this matter.” But if this reply were rendered in writing in Arabic, it would have to be something like the following, in MSA:
“madha qulta? hal sahih annahum sa-yaf’alun tahqiqan al-aan?
fal-naftah ar-radyo. Rubbama sa-nasma’ khabaran jadidan ma fi hadha l-mawdu’”
When comparing the two versions of the colleague’s reply, you can certainly make a good case for saying that you are dealing with two different languages.
For an American linguist studying Arabic who aspires to be generally proficient in the language as a whole, there is unfortunately only one option: You are forced to, in effect, learn two languages: 1) MSA, in order to read Arabic in the media, in books, and elsewhere, and in order to understand anything presented orally—over the media or otherwise—which is official in nature, and 2) one of the major regional spoken Arabic dialects (such as Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, Saudi, Tunisian, or Moroccan) in order to take part in all manner of normal informal everyday conversations with the native speakers of a given dialect area, no matter who they are and what their social or educational level is.
Furthermore, if you plan on going to different parts of the Arab world, you will have to be prepared to at least be familiar with the different vocabulary items, slightly different grammatical structures, and widely-varying pronunciations and intonations that you will hear.
Quite a daunting task, all in all, you might say. Indeed it is, but perhaps not so tough as it appears at first. Here’s why:
1. Arabs are very patient and forgiving when non-Arabs try to learn their language, and are usually quite happy if foreigners have learned any type of Arabic, wherever they have learned it. And if you can put together a sentence of three words or more in their language, either in speech or in writing, they are generally very favorably impressed.
2. If you have studied MSA before attempting to learn to speak a dialect (as is usually the case with foreign learners of Arabic), you’ll be happy to know that the dialects are generally far less complicated in terms of grammar and usage than the written language. It will be like learning a greatly simplified version of MSA, and thus will seem easy.
3. Most of the vocabulary of MSA and spoken Arabic is the same, although the “low-level,” practical, everyday vocabulary is often quite different. But this frequently-used body of vocabulary is something that you are likely to learn quickly and well, since it is used so often and you will hear it constantly from the native speakers.
4. As a foreign, non-native of Arabic, you can always “throw in” vocabulary and forms typical of MSA as you speak in dialect, and this will not greatly disturb the Arabs you are talking to, since they don’t normally expect you to have command of their spoken language. In other words, whatever you say when you speak with them is OK with them, as long as they understand it. Furthermore, there really are no official or accepted “grammatical rules” for speaking any form of colloquial Arabic, and their attitude toward foreigners learning to speak Arabic is much the same as that of Americans when listening to foreigners trying to speak English—that is, anything goes as long as it can be understood.
5. If you are able to speak MSA (using inflectional endings on nouns, verbs, etc. is not necessary), nearly all Arabs everywhere will be able to understand you—but not necessarily be able to reply to you in MSA. Educated Arabs, however, generally can reply in MSA, although sometimes only haltingly, since normally they only write and read in MSA and never speak it spontaneously in everyday conversation.
Colloquial Arabic: What Is It and How Does One Learn It? - Second Part
Editor's Note: This is a two part article. The first part appeared in Newsletter XVII and dealt with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). This second part will deal with colloquial Arabic.
by Howard D. Rowland, PhD*
*Graduate of 18-month DLI Russian course (1961-62), DLI Russian instructor (1973-77), DLI Arabic instructor (1984-87, 1990-99), Ph.D. in Arabic studies from U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor (1971)
Now, assuming that you want to learn to speak colloquial Arabic and perhaps have a real need for doing this, the best approach to doing so would, I believe, be as follows:
1. You have to pick the dialect that is most relevant to you and fits your needs—whether Iraqi, Syrian, Egyptian, or perhaps Saudi, Tunisian, Moroccan, or some other one. If you have no preference or obvious need for any particular dialect, then it would be a good idea to focus on the Egyptian dialect since it is native to such a large number of speakers and is the dialect most widely understood throughout the Arab world due to the influence of Egyptian movies, works of literature, and other media.
2. If you have already spent a year or more learning MSA and have a good command of its basic vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and script, you’ve already won half the battle, because that knowledge will make matters much easier for you. However, even if you do not know any MSA at all, you can still learn to function in an Arabic dialect without having to have previous knowledge of Arabic. In any case, when you study one of the Arabic dialects, the really important thing is to treat the dialect as a language unto itself and entirely separate from MSA. The reason for this is that the dialects have their own characteristic grammar structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation of certain letters that differ—sometimes substantially—from those of MSA and you want to target your efforts in the direction of acquiring knowledge of, and proficiency in, the dialect without being confused by interference from MSA.
3. Most of the commercial dialect-teaching books present the spoken Arabic in the form of some sort of transliteration in the Latin alphabet. Be sure to study the given transliteration system well and learn to read and use it easily, because the rendering of Arabic dialect words in transliteration is usually more fully accurate than Arabic script as a means of representing the sounds and pronunciation of the dialect. Remember, the important thing is to learn how to speak colloquial Arabic rather than to read it, because spoken Arabic is almost never used as a written medium.
4. A good dialect course or instructional book will always have an accompanying CD or cassette tape, hopefully sounding out all the dialogues and, if possible, the exercises contained in the book.
5. Be sure to find a native Arab speaker of the dialect to coach and help you with pronunciation and with whom you can practice speaking, especially at the beginning of your efforts to learn the dialect.
6. If at all possible, try to make a trip to one or more of the Arab immigrant communities in the U.S. (such as Detroit or Dearborn in Michigan, Los Angeles, San Diego, or San Francisco in California, or New York City or the Washington, DC area) and visit small newsstands, grocery stores, restaurants, and delicatessens owned by Arabs there and practice speaking with the locals. They’ll be pleased to hear Arabic from you.
7. Finally, if possible, make a trip to the country whose dialect you have studied and wander around its capital city and maybe other towns there and speak Arabic to everybody whom you deal with. Keep on speaking Arabic even if people initially reply in English (or French, for example), and before long they will “yield” since they will see that you are serious about speaking their language.
As for materials to use to learn some of the Arabic dialects, below is a list that I have compiled of some of those that I am familiar with:
...
Moroccan Arabic
1. A Basic Course in Moroccan Arabic, by Richard Harrell, with CD, $39.95. First published in the 1960’s, this book is extremely well designed and similar in quality and approach to Erwin’s A Basic Course in Iraqi Arabic. Can be ordered through the Georgetown University Press.
Other Arabic Dialect Materials – The above-mentioned works are not an exhaustive list, and there are new books and courses on CDs that are starting to come out. Also, DLI Arabic students and graduates of the DLI Arabic program may have access to other special materials designed to teach them various Arabic dialects, possibly even targeting their anticipated needs on the job following their assignment to DLI. Two courses which I can also suggest are the following, which I personally worked on and produced, together with others, while employed at DLI. Copies of them may or may not still be available for use by DLI graduates and others associated with DLI and the U.S. military. They are the following:
...
Editor's Note: The fist part of this article appeared in our Newsletter XVII.
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Edited by napoleon on 05 May 2013 at 4:42pm
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