Which dialect of arabic should i learn

Most vocabulary and most grammar. I was effectively learning the wrong language. While I reached a good stage in my first two months with mostly spoken sessions, my technique is generally to go back to study-mode in my final dash to fluency and tweak my grammar and do exercises and the like between spoken sessions so I can speak confidently without the mistakes I had before.

I haven't ironed out those mistakes because I had no good material to help me do it, as I've had in countless other languages. Hell, even Esperanto and Irish Geailge have more material to work with compared to Arabic dialects, and I went for the biggest dialect!

It's incredible when you consider the number of speakers involved. Start by getting a phrase book , because these do indeed focus on dialect the great thing is that they cover several dialects, not just Egyptian, so this will work if you are going elsewhere in the Arabic world , they don't distract you with Arabic script and are small enough to consume quickly. Lonely Planet does one for several dialects for instance. If you speak French, I found Assimil's de Poche to be very helpful.

And immediately from then, start getting very regular practice with native speakers just from the country you are going to, and make it clear that your priority is to learn the dialect, not MSA. This is probably the most controversial piece of advice I'll give that I know many will disagree on, but if you have a spoken focus, Arabic script is inefficient to represent the words of dialect, especially because of lack of most vowels shown.

So when you are making a note of vocabulary, pick one way to represent sounds not in English such as in the Wikipedia link above , and learn it that way. If you write to your teacher, type a Romanized version.

All my flashcards in Anki where representing vocabulary using Romanized script rather than Arabic. Do indeed learn Arabic script though! It's just a few hours work, and you are done. But initially , as a traveller you only need this for recognition, such as in signs and menus. Reading novels and newspapers can come later. Luckily I've finally come across a decent book that I'd recommend for people to try out after lots of spoken practice, and thanks to this I am finally tying up loose ends.

It's kind of technical, but is a huge help for me to speak correctly, so with a bit of practice I can get that final flow I need:.

Kullu Tamam. It has some problems like an occasional typo, and it's incredibly dry no pictures, and the dialogues aren't interesting so I definitely can't recommend it to absolute beginners. But it only discusses dialect, and does so using Romanized script. It gets into technical explanations of why certain things are said in certain ways. I studied this for a couple of days while in Cairo, and got through it quick enough because of all the previous exposure and familiarity with most words and am now finally starting to speak correctly.

I am still hesitating a lot as I think about how to process the words in the right way and of course slip up occasionally , but luckily I am getting tonnes of practice every day and should reach a much more comfortable level within the next weeks. A completely free resource, which is both a dictionary and a pretty detailed grammar explanation is Lisaan Masry.

Make this your home page if you are intensively learning Arabic! There are reasons for the perceived difficulty. Due to it being phonetically influenced by Berber, Moroccan Arabic , for example, sounds very fast and hence unintelligible to Middle Eastern Arabs. Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian dialects are often said to be peppered by French, Italian and Spanish words. While this is true to a large extent, it can make it an easier dialect to learn for European learners than say Levantine or Egyptian.

On a side note, Arabs in the Middle East are often oblivious to the fact their respective dialects are equally peppered with Farsi and Turkish words. This perceived difficulty should make it attractive to learners who want to learn an Arabic dialect for professional reasons and are unimpressed with this talk about difficult dialects.

So, if you prefer the unbeaten path, you should possibly consider Maghrebi dialects, particularly if you speak French, Spanish, Italian or Poruguese. If you are learning Arabic with the goal of obtaining work in one of the Gulf countries, then needless to say it is imperative you learn Saudi, Emirati or Kuwaiti dialect s.

When I travel to the Gulf region, I am amazed by how little Arabic many expats know. Imagine you are in an emergency situation and your life depends on the ability to speak the local dialect.

You will need to communicate with the police or EMS who are often locals who speak little to no English. Hassaniiya — This dialect is spoken in Mauritania Maltese Not only are there so many dialects spoken, there are limited amounts of plays, books and poetry in many of the dialects.

Get Started Today! Sign up today! About the Author: admin. Related Posts. Is Arabic Hard to Learn? Arabic for Adults. In general, Sudanese Arabic is actually more closely related to Hejazi Arabic in pronunciation more on Hejazi Arabic later. In fact, when it comes to pronunciation, Sudanese Arabic is often referred to as a pure and archaic interpretation of Arabic. Sudanese Arabic maintained many archaic pronunciations and writing sequences that other dialects have long forgotten.

This marks a sea change from Egyptian Arabic, which sticks pretty close to the current modern standard. Like Sudanese Arabic, Yemeni Arabic is another Arabic dialect that has maintained many classical features.

Spoken by over 15 million people in you guessed it Yemen southwestern Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Djibouti. Additionally, Yemeni Arabic can be subdivided into many different dialect groups. Moreover, Yemeni is the spoken language of the area, but speakers will use MSA for all written purposes.

Hijazi Arabic is an Arabic dialect spoken by over 14 million people in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, this dialect is further divided along city and country lines. There are urban and rural versions of the dialect. The residents of Jeddah, Mecca, and Medina mostly speak the urban version.

Further, you can find the rural dialect in the Bedouin tribes of the rural areas. Of all of the Arabic dialects, Maltese is the more interesting dialect because it is so strikingly different from MSA.