ArabicAmateur wrote:bolaobo wrote:ArabicAmateur wrote:I’ve read through your whole blog with interest - inspiring stuff, not least because we’re attempting to learn Arabic at a similar age and from a similar level!
I’ve probably put more time into MSA overall than you, but I am keen to focus more on Levantine (and also have Elihay’s Complete Eastern Arabic). While I’m perhaps less introverted than you, I am keen to use my Arabic (both MSA and dialect) to be able to consume content or strike up conversations - which I could do fairly easily in my city. While MSA is overall likely a better base to build off of for dialects than the reverse, I’m likely to make quicker progress in a dialect.
That said, like you, Persian appeals - it’s beautiful, and substantially easier than Arabic. I’m interested in Dari specifically, but recognise I’ll likely need to use plenty of Persian resources. That said, the colloquial Vs academic Persian means it’ll be similar to Arabic with needing to cover both if I want to be functionally literate. However, I imagine the diglossia isn’t quite as extreme as with Arabic (as with most things in the language)…
Thanks for reading my log! Happy to see another Arabic learner here. Arabic is definitely underappreciated in language learning communities.
You can't go wrong with learning a dialect, especially if you have the opportunity to use it. Levantine is also quite close to MSA. I'm on lesson 15 of Elihay's and my main struggle is the verbs, because I find the suffixes and prefixes hard to make out in normal speech. MSA is spoken a lot more....methodically with clear vowel boundaries. But despite small grammar differences Levantine helps me with MSA and vice versa.
As for Persian, if that's where your motivation lies, I don't see why you can't study it a bit. Motivation is so important. But if you want to wait, you'll likely find it much easier than Arabic. Arabic requires a lot more time, obviously, so if you're on the fence I'd focus on Arabic for now.
While the way MSA is put together is fascinating, and I would like to read, dialect just feels like it offers the more traditional core of learning a language - speaking to natives, consuming native media etc.
How have you found your retention of vocab and concepts from Elihay’s books? I’m only on lesson 4 and do really appreciate the pronunciation transliteration, but find the lack of Arabic text quite disconcerting. There’s also the realisation that while dialect may do away with a lot of the grammatical complexities there remains, as you note, a lot of challenges in pronunciation and listening.
I used Mango Languages extensive Levantine course to get a base before and may revisit. It’s good for vocab and grammatical structures, but the pronunciation can be a bit all over the place. I’m hoping the two would work together well!
I’m dipping my toe into Persian sporadically, hopefully to either decide I have a more realistic chance in making progress vs Arabic and shifting focus or, more likely, to realise it remains challenging and ensure I’m not distracted by thoughts of other languages!
My vocab retention has been fine. He repeats words quite often, except for the occasional straggler that shows up in exercises or once and never again.
Not including Arabic text is definitely controversial, but I don't think it's strictly necessary. It's impossible to unambiguously indicate all of the vowels, the helper vowels, and the liaisons with just Arabic text. But it's probably something that should be practiced outside of the textbook because a lot of other resources only include the Arabic text, even if there's no standard spelling. For example, all of the transcripts in GLOSS are only in Arabic script.
For what it's worth, I find that Arabic helps Persian more than Persian helps my Arabic. I study both, as you know, and I often find that Arabic helps my Persian, but I rarely encounter the opposite.