Clarification Edit: for people who speak English natively and are learning a second language

  • mtchristo@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Languages with phonetic writing in the modern day likely achieved that through a language standardization process that included spelling reforms.

    Not Arabic. It is pronounced as it is written. Except a handful of words that have a different transcription to make them easily distinguishable.

      • mtchristo@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        We only refer to MSA when talking about Arabic. Most Arab speakers consider dialects side languages to Classical Arabic. They have never had a transcription throughoutout history. People started writing in their dialects only recently with the arrival of SMS and the internet.

        I get that as a new comer to Arabic you probably have come across learning materials for dialects like Egyptian and levantine. But in reality you won’t find uni courses for those dialects because academics don’t consider them to be proper languages with clear grammar and an established vocabulary.

          • mtchristo@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            You do you. And you have to take into consideration what your goal is by learning Arabic.

            Dialects are definitely easier to learn and more rewarding as it allows you to converse with people and test your advancements. But you won’t be able to easily transition to another dialect. Because MSA is the glue that make the intelligible.

            Learning MSA will take you triple the time. And I imagine your teacher is both proud of his dialect. But also doesn’t want you to drop learning if you were to have chosen MSA