How to learn Arabic dialects - Olly Richards at the Polyglot Gathering 2015 

Great talk. But I think it also displays a common misconception that you should focus on dialects in order to communicate with people, since MSA is not really spoken in the Arab world. More than anything else the difference between MSA and dialects is a matter of register. While it is true that dialects are spoken on the streets, you definitely need to have a good command of MSA to communicate in official contexts, for example to watch the news, or to understand announcements in train stations etc... By the way, the same thing exists in western countries. If I went to a basketball court in Harlem and approached the kids with something like "Excuse me gentlemen. Would you like to play a game of basketball with me?", they probably would burst into laughter too. So should we start studying NYC street slang in school instead of standard English? I would say "No". Once you have mastered the basics of MSA understanding dialects will not be too difficult, since dialects are basically simplified versions of MSA.

I am highly impressed with your site and I refer constantly to the Levantine section (for me) and the Saudi section (to help my missus understand my daughter’s school teachers!). Thank you for your interesting point of view. However, my experience indicates that some of the views above are slightly misleading. Originally, I spoke West-Bank Palestinian Arabic. When I left that environment for one where there were no speakers of that dialect, in order not to forget my Arabic I started to learn MSA. After only 1 year of learning I found I could communicate with most Arabs I met, even if they replied in their dialect or endeavoured to standardise between dialect and MSA. The only problems I ever encountered were with Algerians who could not adapt to that standardisation and I in turn could not understand them, so in most cases (not all) we would resort to English. I’ve never had a problem (or very little problems) with others and I’ve met speakers from every Arabic-speaking country except Mauritania. To state that MSA is not a lingua franca of the Arab world is erroneous. If I speak and understand only Palestinian, how can I possibly communicate with, say, a Sudanese unless I ‘Egyptianise’ my speech (since many Arabs are familiar with Egyptian due to the entertainment world, but I have never been to Egypt and I know nothing of Egyptian entertainment except Umm Kulthum)? I have seen countless examples of Arabs using MSA to communicate with others from different Arab (or non-Arab) countries. How can we possible understand the news, listen to a talk, read a book or magazine, or write a proper letter if we don’t know MSA? Other such examples exist in the world, such as Indonesia. When I was there, I had to communicate in Bahasa Indonesia, even though no one speaks it as a mother tongue. I couldn’t waste my time learning Javanese, Sundanese, Madura, Batak, Minang, etc. in order to be understood unless I lived in an area where they spoke a specific language or dialect of Malay (I lived where they spoke Betawi, which I did pick up a little). I do not deny there are Arabs who don’t understand MSA, but as in Indonesia where there are people who don’t know Bahasa Indonesia, by and large we are forced to use Bahasa Indonesia to communicate. Another point to be made is that it is much easier to learn a dialect after studying MSA, than to learn MSA armed only with a dialect. The transition from West Bank dialect to MSA was a hard one for me. Now after many years of speaking MSA I have an excellent book from the US whereby I am relearning Palestinian from MSA (the book is aimed at people who know MSA) and this ‘re-transition’ is a much easier one, as the similarities between MSA and dialect plus the simplified grammar are refreshing. To claim MSA is ‘archaic’ is the same old put-down I’ve seen all over the net by non-Arabs. How do we use dialect for standard technical, professional, legal, engineering, medicine, marketing, etc. terms if MSA so ‘archaic’? What is the point of Al-Mawrid dictionary being republished every year if not to provide modern and technical Arabic vocabulary? Dialect is great for the area you live or plan to visit. But you won’t get by on it all around the Arab world (or outside for that matter).

About "speaking for learning", when I was studying at university (at Poland), where we had many exchange students from Iraqi there was this one guy that was of Kurdish origin, Iraqi Arabic was his second language (to the point rest of people from Iraq had big troubles understanding him), he knew no English and was taking Polish course for MSA speakers with textbook written in mixture of MSA, English and Polish. I've spent many hours talking with him and at first it was more of a handwaving experience at first, then after one year we could communicate about basic matters, and after two years he was fluent at Polish to the level he had no troubles partaking the real university courses - that's a good example what "speaking for learning" can do for person, especially when one doesn't really have any other choice, no training wheels - no real fluency in Arabic or English:) Pardon my terrible English, I shouldn't really discuss learning foreign languages when I can speak one in a sloppy manner at best;) (I'm more of a linguistics kind of guy that likes to learn about differences in grammar ideas and such than to dig into practical approach)

@Olly Richards you make learning our beautiful Language so hard, Which is not I'm from Iraq and I understand 99% from all the Arabs countries dialect we just naming things differently but our foundation is the same. I have friends from all the Arabs countries and we go very easy in our communication.

Many experts say that one should learn Modern Standard Arabic and one popular dialect, i.e. Egyptian or Levantine, these both are popular due to their prevalence in media and entertainment, also due to the Egyptian diaspora throughout the Arab world and the western world period.

Basque is a language not related to Spanish or Latin languages. It is an isolated language from different origins.

I have to say that Egyptian Arabic will be the language for 2019 along with French I at least want to speak them both and a B. One. Level or a B2. Level I’m fine Arabic to be a very beautiful language in the fact that I would be able to communicate in such a lovely Language will be a great experience for me as a language lover and learner. I thought it was great that you can actually take the time to learn that language while working in Egypt.

I am going to say something controversial but I have never met someone who learned Arabic to the point that Thought they were a native speaker. The Arabic language seems to escape non Arabs. Just my 2 cents

thank you

not everyone uses the franco arabic alphabet , it's only used when using say a phone that doesn't have arabic keyboard with smartphones that's not an issue anymore

the writing is the same in MSA there is no dialect in writing at all but the speaking will shift to a dialect

صحيت ! راك عجبني ! Sahit ! Rak 3ajabni !

If anyone knows of good resources for Shami Arabic please let me know. Especially audio or media sources. It seems the only thing I can find is Egyptian.

18:52 There are websites that convert Franco to Arabic

MSA, as its name indicates, has undergone large changes through time in vocabulary and phonetics. Much vocab in the Quran is not used in MSA...even less so in arabic dialects like Tunisian Arabic or Egyptian Arabic. Remember that neither CA nor MSA are are mother tongues: nobody speaks them as their natural speech form. They are rather written standard forms. I suggest you start learning a dialect…coĺoquial form of arabic with a textbook such as “Tunisian Arabic in 24 Lessons”

Yes I am polygot

iam palestinian and i speak most of msa and modern standard arabic ..anyone wants help i ready and happy to help

Yer divvent see Geordie wrote doon aal that offen neethah but that divvent mean wuz divvent taakit.

آل كتاب الف با كتير منيح.

Amazing presentation 👏 regarding "Franco-Arabic", I would say nowadays on facebook, twitter, etc. Franco-Arabic is receding in favour of the Arabic script. In certain countries (like Libya) it was never popular to begin with. Frankly, I find it uneasy on the eyes but it is undeniably useful when used in Arabic instruction although I myself would use a transliteration system closer to the one used in academic studies of Arabic.

6:23 also in iraq we use the arabic as official language, why it's colored in blue :/

This was almost unwatchable. He keeps going into anecdotes and then asking the audience leading questions, all basic, none insightful. This talk could have been ten minutes long.

Like Japanese switch their honorifics, Arabic people switch to al-fos7a! Very interesting!!!!!!

Hello who wants to teach him Arabic language, which teach me English language to write me

I think there was a confusing about what dialects is , our dialects are not that different it's not like what British to Spanish those are two diff languages it's more like British to American USA to other countries that use English as its base language but the way they sound is varying . So if you know Egyptian Arabic you will understand gulf Arabic or sham Arabic and they will understand you ,North African Arabic are challenging but they will understand you.And in meetings we use either our dialects or MSA or more like informal MSA .

all arab countries understand each other without the need of any book explaining the difference between the arab countries...its just the accent and few local word (local words came from the mixture of the Arabic and invasion languages [English,French, Turkish)]...and at all time the FOS'HA can be understood anywhere through the arab world :)... iraq's official language is Arabic too :)

less talking, more teaching Arabic plz!

I like this guy, but I hate the audience. I wish they would just stop guessing stuff and trying to sound smart.

ههههههه عبيتعلمو عربي😂