I always reccommend that people learn some colloquial, 'aamia or darija as soon as possible, I think it helps to know some 'aamia even as you learn Fusha too. Plus Modern standard is pretty, but a bit formal and stiff and not really the best means to interact with arabic speakers on an everyday basis.

In terms. There used to be a great Hugo language course, book and tapes called Arabic in 3 months. It was mainy Jordanian dialect, but that was cool for getting a little sense of Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian Arabic as well. Though this wouldn't be of much use for North African Arabic which is very, very different. I don't know of a good course for that alas . . .

oooh, i don't really know, the CD just says "arabic" .

They only had once choice when i ordered it...

Hi Kamilia,

>That's a be-auuuuuuuuuu-tiful takchita (caftan, whatever) in your picture. All of mine are >crap.

Why thank you! Though I actually think yours looks nice. I have several cheapy ones too - the nice ones are EXPENSIVE! Even with a Moroccan woman there to keep the shopsellers somewhat honest. I like your Khaliji "sneeze" pic, too ;-)

Anyway, the Moroccan course - I bought the book in Moroccan, but then tracked down and found the MP3 disk on the Georgetown University Press website press.georgetown.edu/detail.html You really need the audio.

I can understand why it got a bad rap from some folks on amazon.com - if you are looking for a quick phrasebook to get you chatting in Moroccan, this is not it, but it works for me because it's broken into short lessons of a few pages each, with a 5 minute or so audio file to go with each one, which makes it perfect for lunchtime reading (it's the only time I've managed to study consistantly in). Some of the language is outdated, but still understandable (my Moroccan fiance says they are words that his grandmother might use), but most is still valid.

I don't know that there is any fast way to learn Arabic (if anyone know of one, hey, tell us about it!) but I enjoy the journey, so it doesn't bother me too much, and I like to try different approaches, and get excited when they intersect!

Great story! I can understand the Chinese ladies reluctance to exhibit their English. In my Arabic classes we learned mainly formal Arabic. I'm embarrassed to use it around anyone who speaks Arabic because I know that I'll sound like a textbook.

Terri

Is Fussi in fact Fassi? Some Fassi's have power trips about their arabic. I'm going to investigate that one further...

Shaami is from the Levant. I guess it's part of a bigger dialect group (with Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian and Syrian in there, but how distinct are those from eachother?)

The most common dialects and dialect groups (besides shammi) I've heard of are:
(Big disclaimer: this stuff is so relative. I'm not proclaiming absolute truth here)

North African (you know those countries. Is Mauritanian included?)
Libyan (displaced Bedouin dialect)
Egyptian (hizz ya wizz!)
Sudanese (I think there's a lot of controversy about that one)
Khailiji (a3chou agaf!)
Iraqi (is that with Khailji or does it have a mind of it's own?)

I know more people understand Egyptian, but with all those movies and songs I feel like shaking my shoulders, batting my eyelashes and making my voice go up an octave just to say something simple like "a3mal eh??". I feel weird when interlocutions don't have a requisite 40 minute orchestra intro and choreography. This is just my point of view as an outsider.

A good compromise I've found with Egyptian dialect is with the Saaidi dialect. They say "ga" for "qaf", amongst other pronunciation differences. No more "ya elbi!". It has the same vocabulary everyone recognizes, but markedly less...theatrics, if you will.

>I gather that Fussi (sp?) is something like classical Arabic, but I asked a couple of my Moroccan friends what it was, and got blank looks.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusha_(language)

Fụṣha (فصحى) (pronounced like "foos-̣ha" with an emphatic "h") is a collective term referring to the standardized, non-spoken varieties of the Arabic language, as opposed to the spoken varieties of Arabic. Many western scholars distinguish two common Fụṣha varieties: Classical Arabic, that used during the 6th and 7th centuries A.D., and Modern Standard Arabic, the variety used today. Despite the large historical gap between them, the two varieties remain largely intelligible, and MSA remains relatively uniform regardless of its place of origin. Thus, most Arabs consider the two varieties to be one.

See also

* Modern Standard Arabic
* Arabic language
* Learn (Fụṣha) Arabic WikiBook