So a hobby of mine is learning languages, and I just thought... Why not learn Arabic? Here are some quick questions I have..
1. What is the most widely spoken dialect? I was thinking about learning Egyptian Arabic..
2. How long did it take you to learn Arabic? I fully expect it to take ten years for me to learn if I decide to go through with it..
Learning languages is one of my hobbies too. For speaking, the egyptian dialect has the most material in regards to media, so you have a lot to listen to for practice. I prefer the levantine dialect, but even there I'd say it breaks down to several similar dialects depending on the region of the speakers. When it comes to newspapers, books, the news, poetry, islamic literature, etc. the modern standard arabic is used. Speaking-wise, whichever you choose would generally be understood by all arabic speakers. There may be some minor differences here and there but not big enough to cause issue (in regards to middle eastern dialects that is). Arabic in the african regions (moroccan, algerian, tunisian, etc) are very different from middle eastern dialects though, so it would be difficult to communicate. I have heard though that they are able to understand the middle eastern dialects, it just doesn't work the other way around as easily
One friend of mine learned how to speak arabic fluently simply by having arab friends who taught her. Languages can be mastered in about a year, two years max if you study them diligently.
From Wiki: The greatest variations between kinds of Arabic are those between regional language groups. These can be divided many ways, but the following typology is usually used:
Maghrebi group
Moroccan Arabic (الدارجة - darija)
Tunisian Arabic (تونسي - tūnsī)
Algerian Arabic (دارجة - darja)
Libyan Arabic ( ليبي - lībi)
Hassaniya Arabic
Saharan Arabic
Sudanese group
Sudanese Arabic (سوداني - sūdānī)
Chadian Arabic
Juba Arabic
Andalusian group
This group includes various dialects throughout the Iberian peninsula (extinct in Iberia, surviving among Andalusi communities in North Africa)
The Quran is without doubt the most important arabic text and contains subtleties and nuances that amaze scholars and laymen alike. If you devoted your life to studying it you won't even s ratch the surface
For that reason I recommend you to learn classical language but if speaking is important to you why not learn both? Classical and a modern dialect at the same time
I'm learning classical myself though I am only a beginner and can recommend some resources let me know if you are interested
“Allah gave you a gift of 86,000 seconds today, have you used one to say ‘Alhamdulilah"
I'm a bit confused... Will people from all dialects understand me? How easy would it be to pick up on a dialect after learning it?
I do not know Arabic...so I cannot help you much with that unfortunately...
but, I have a friend who took a few Arabic lessons, and from him I know that Arabic is not like most other languages.
First of all, if you read a piece of article, text or whatever....you can have a pretty good impression about the level of education of the author of the text.
There is this modern standard arabic. this is the literary arabic. Then there is the classical arabic, in which the Quraan is written...nowadays hardly used as language anymore. at last we have the spoken arabic...which are the various dialects.
If a text contains a lot of those elements from MSA or classical Arabic, then this is an indication that the author was a highly educated person and the less people can understand the text. if a text contains a lot of the spoken language, more people can read and understand it, the author was not that highly educated, or the author chose to write like that to make his text more accessible to the people.
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