Thanks @wtjiv for reporting this mistake. I have deleted the wrong audio. Thanks again.
Best,
Ángela
Hello,
May I ask if the audio has been recorded by “native speakers” (MSA has no native speakers ofc) or by using a text-to-speech software?
Thanks!
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Hello @berciur
Well, I don’t know about the courses, but any person from any arabic country can speak “modern arabic” (even if I don’t understand this distinction, arabic is arabic, there is not modern arabic and ancient arabic).
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Hey!
I meant that many people in the Arab world don’t use MSA among themselves but their local dialects however, I know that MSA is the langauge that is used in formal situations, in newspapers etc… Many of these dialects are grammatically less strict (but I am sure you know about this since I see you can speak arabic) so as a consequence many people get some grammatical stuff wrong when they speak MSA. Or at least, this is what I heard from other arabic speakers.
Yes, please. If one makes the effort to learn the alphabet and read then one also needs to use it actively, i.e. writing!
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Yes, please. That’d be a great help.
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Hello @berciur,
Our official courses teach the Modern Standard Arabic, that is spoken by many different regions, so there is not one MSA accent, but many, our voice over artists show that variety while keeping the correct standard pronunciation.
Best,
Ángela
Hello @Fandorina and @spocki,
I appreciate your interest and we are thinking about implementing this possibility. However first we’re thinking of a better way of teaching the script, because users with no knowledge whatsoever will have a hard time typing. But I can assure you this is part of the plan. Thanks for your patience.
Best,
Ángela
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I must confess I do have a major issue with teaching MSA.
If you want to learn arabic, to go visit a country and converse with locals and get around etc… you will struggle if all you can speak is MSA. The average cab driver in Cairo will not really understand you.
In my opinion you are far better learning a dialect, for whichever region you want (Egyptian, Eastern so ).
If you look around the internet at the various “famous” polyglots, they are in agreement with this so please don’t take my word for it. Alternatively have a look at wikipedia, search for “varieties of arabic” and check out just how different MSA is from some of the dialect arabic.
I would recommend changing this course to teach a dialect or at least make it explicitly clear in the title this is MSA.
DOI - Egyptian who has lost his arabic (careless I know).
From what I’ve heard, MSA is like the “Lingua Franca” of the Arabic world. It’s used in newspapers, TV, etc. So I people would understand. I’ve also heard that it is similar to Quranic Arabic.
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There is a big difference between understanding and speaking.
I can understand my parents very well when they chat between themselves. Ask me to construct a sentence or converse and I’m all at sea.
Yes, you are right it is the commonest language used in newspapers TV… I think my post could have been more precise in retrospect but I do stand by my gist of the comments. If you want to converse fluently, haggle, get around you are much better off learning dialect.
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AFAIK the language/dialect of their curriculum is MSA, and I believe most of us will communicate with Arabs who can understand TV channels and newspapers. There are user made courses with different dialects already. I will start with Egyptian dialect after the official courses. So IMO learning a dialect is the next step. (I hope I’ve explained myself well)
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I still think that’s a mistake. I took the liberty of speaking to my parents (and others) who actually grew up in Egypt as well as cousins who still live there. When I asked how likely you were to be able to hold a conversation with an egyptian in MSA the answer was “almost no chance”. YMMV with other countries but you don’t see people learning Latin to chat to half of Europe.
Like I said though, DON’T take my word for it. Do some research, google it.
Here are some links to get you started…
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/1792820
In any case, I’ve said my piece. Whatever you choose to learn - enjoy!
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I’m not against learning a dialect, I will learn one after finishing msa courses hopefully. But even their basic education, children’s books etc. in MSA. If I want to read a book, newspaper or watch tv, news etc. I have to know MSA anyway.
Because Europe don’t use Latin on their Tv channels, newspapers and books. Oh also Latin is not the language of their (basic) education.
It seems none of the articles were written by a native Arabic speaker. I highly recommend reading the comments section on the last website. Most of the native speakers are against the writer.
And again I hope I’ve explained myself well. Thank you for the links.
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Just noticed a wee error: in Arabic 2, for numbers 17 and 18 the man says 17 and 18 both times.
Could anyone look into it? Many thanks!
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Does anyone know how many of the words in this course are the same in Egyptian Arabic? It seems like the most well-crafted Arabic course on here, but I’m trying to gauge how useful it would be for me as a learner of Egyptian Arabic. Thanks!
And the same with Norway and Sweden. Thanks in advance for fixing!
Hi there, I started the Arabic 1 course today but it seems to keep getting stuck at different letters of the alphabet so that I have to exit the exercise and start again before I get another letter. Is anyone else having the same problem and knows how to fix it? I’ve already tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app. Thanks!
Hello, anyone who happens to be on this forum page. I noticed that a word in Arabic 2 was wrongly translated (“skirt”). Instead, when the Arabic word is translated, it says “gone”. It could be possible that other words have wrong translations. Please fix this.
Could you please check Arabic 3, level 26? Written months and spoken months (female voice) don’t match.
Thanks.