No matter what flavor of Arabic you decide to study, lay out your goals for the short and long term. This will help you chart your progress. Don't worry about the curriculum of a school or a university. If you are reaching your own goals, then you're making concrete progress in Arabic. Those goals may change as you learn more about the language and Arabic culture.

What's the best colloquial dialect?

Wherever you travel in the Arabic-speaking world, the people will tell you that their dialect is the purest and closest to Classical Arabic. All of the dialects have evolved beyond Classical Arabic, and these differences are heard most often in everyday speech.

Television and movies have made the Egyptian dialect the most widely understood throughout the Arab world.If you speak colloquial Egyptian, you will probably be understood by many Arabic speakers--but this does not mean that you'll understand them. As someone wrote, an Egyptian might be able to go to Gulf and talk about politics or literature, but he might have problems if he went to a store and asked for a loaf of bread. There seems to be some major groups of colloquial Arabic:

- Egyptian (possibly including the Sudan)
- Maghrebi, used in the North African countries of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria
- Levantine, used in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine
- Gulf Arabic, used in the Emirates, Kuwait, possibly Saudi Arabia (?)
- Iraqi

Here's how you'd say "how are you?" to a man on the street:
- Egyptian: izzayak?
- Levantine: keefak?
- Iraqi: shloonak?

I have no idea about the dialects spoken in Yemen, but I hear (of course) it's close to Classical Arabic.

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Originally posted by cool_dude:
you have so many of these posts..lol

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Originally posted by Serendipity:
I am glad that you are offering this advices. there are so many who would love to study arabic but dont know in wich way.
I myself am arbic, but I never learned arabic, lived in europe since i was 6-7 years old. Had to learn it by myself from a library book. But il hamdilla i did it. And its nice to see that finally someone wants to help out and give advice. I wish someone did when i was trying to learn it.

keep up the good work
Sara

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Originally posted by cool_dude:
you have so many of these posts..lol

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Originally posted by ah_farrag:
Thank you Sara, for your nice comments,
and I expect that you will find a lot of helpers and advisors, when you decide to start learning Arabic, and for the current moment you have one of them.
So I can help whenever you need my support.
Ahmed
ah_farrag@hotmail.com

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Thanks for wanting to help, but il hamdilla, amazingly enough after only 4 months I could read fluently arabic. I still have some problems with the wiriting though but I am learning step by step.
its just that the arabic grammar is not easy so i had to read the rules ten times before even understanding them!

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Originally posted by Angelcake:
Great post, thankyou. I really struggle with the language and the way the language is taught in our local college (Sharm).
You have made me think about what I want to learn and why ie Just getting by on a daily basis and being more able to interact with eygptian friends and neighbours. My college insists on reading and writing. It is so difficult I give up. I have lived here for 2 years very happily but wish I could understand more.
Egyptians are so talented with languages, my husband is fluent in 3 others. Perhaps europeans just aren't, what is your view ?
So many of our european friends feel the same. All the best

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Originally posted by Geneva:
The best way to learn Arabic is pillow-talk after amazing sex!

It worked for me...

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