Learn (Levantine) Arabic with me!

[@eltel104]

This is amazing. I work in healthcare and have a lot of arabic speaking colleagues and patients, so was hacking my way through Duolingo MSA. They all smile politely when i say a sentence in broken MSA, but I know theyre just being nice. Ive been very keen to follow a course on a specific dialect. I live in Ireland, so missed the live stream but will be following along each week on the recording. Easily my favourite channel on KZbin

[@ns8077]

Started learning Arabic alphabet on Duolingo and having so much trouble with s, d, t, DH and S, D, T, DH. Your explanation really helped! The angry voice visual and "you can hear it on the vowel" comment--I needed those. Thank you!!

[@adrianblake8876]

The Duolingo course for Arabic was very lacking in vocabulary, I found myself doing it on autopilot...

[@ancientromewithamy]

Looking up videos about pronouncing specific letters was very helpful to me, if necessary, multiple videos from different people for each letter. I studied the IPA when majoring in German in university but it did not prepare me for Arabic. More examples, more explanations, more people pointing at different places in their mouths, etc. helped me before watching this. DuoLingo does NOT do a good job of explaining the sounds, I found it a useful tool to just get used to reading words a little bit at first though.

[@matheuscastello6554]

great timing! i've been curious about arabic for a while, and recently found out my grandfather has lebanese ancestry, so i've been meaning to start learning levantine arabic for the last few days! nice to see this pop up

[@ancientromewithamy]

Good to see this! I only just started with Arabic (MSA), I had been meaning to forever, but the script and the amount of new vocabulary intimidated me. I've bought a few books and am watching YT videos, hearing things spoken has helped with the learning the alphabet part (which was a huge obstacle), and I have been writing things down in notebooks which has also helped a lot. Listening a lot.

[@adrianblake8876]

58:30 According to wiktionary it comes from the Arabic word حضرة (HaDra) meaning "presence", and the phrase is used in Egyptian Arabic (and MSA) as a formal way to say "you"... Kind of a translation of Spanish "usted"...

[@languagejones]

It’s my new favorite - how’s your you?

[@adrianblake8876]

​@@languagejones You misunderstood... 😅 It's "your presence", and the whole phrase just means "you"...

[@scrooge3056]

Regarding the dialects map I need to mention that there are some mistakes cause in Sudan we dont speak Sa'idi(صعيدى), sa'idi is spoken exclusively in southern Egypt. Also Regarding Nubi which is spoken also in southern Egypt and part of nothern Sudan. Its not an Arabic dialect its a whole different language. Arabic Sudanese is not spoken in South Sudan alot as there are other local languages specifically after separation using Arabic decreased. And even when it was used it was not the same dialect used in Northern Sudan. Sudanese Arabic is covering most of the Northern and the Middle. As a native language and also MSA as an official language. As for South Sudan, now official language is English and the spoken languages are local African local ones. However MSA learning will guarantee new learners to be understood everywhere in Arabic countries. And also will benefit if you are learning Arabic for work or business.

[@Bmonkeygurl]

I have been enjoying using Alif Baa and AlKitab books with the online content.

[@zenbrandon]

I love this style of stream. It's funny you mention Language Simp because aside from you, he's my other favorite language KZbinr!

[@languagejones]

I'm so glad you like it! I was wary of doing these because I wasn't sure there'd be an audience. And Language Simp is basically my id lol

[@nathanpiazza9644]

Been waiting for this one! I really liked the Persian ones.

[@KC-vq2ot]

For someone who is looking into studying Arabic How much do you actually get with MSA? Would it be possible to read, say, "1001 nights" in original Arabic if I were to pour all of my resources into learning MSA? Or is it some other variety of Arabic entirely? For now I am not really interested in spoken Arabic, because I am not planning on, well, speaking it and it seems that MSA is a must anyway I am trying to wrap my head aroud this whole "dialects" situation, so any pointers would be gladly appreciated Thanks Your content is awesome

[@phillipdavis9098]

Depends on what you're interested in, really. Dialects are really needed to understand anything that isn't news, books, and other formal speech, but it's fairly hard to find, e.g., subtitles in dialect, since native Arabic media is almost always subtitled in MSA. Also, there's a lot of overlap in vocab (especially with Levantine dialects). My advice would be to start with a loose focus on whichever of MSA or a dialect interests you, but also practice the other from time to time. Native Arabic speakers fluidly move between them, sometimes within the same sentence, and you're gonna have a hard time finding media that is "purely" dialect or "purely" MSA.

[@karamia1392]

I would love to learn Yiddish because my dearest friend speaks it :)

[@Μαρία-ε5ξ5η]

Hello! In this book, are all these written in the arabic script as well? Or are they written in the Latin alphabet?

[@languagejones]

@@Μαρία-ε5ξ5η mostly transliterated. But honestly, I don’t recommend this book, and I quit making these streams largely because the routledge colloquial Levantine Arabic book is so unusably bad

[@marianorequejo5644]

I was waiting for this one! Do you know if the colloquiall textbook is good enough to start learning french? I'm thinking of either using that one or an old assimil book 😅

[@languagejones]

I’ve skimmed the French; it looked decent. But I have French family so it’s hard for me to evaluate sources for starting from scratch

[@danapottratz9243]

How ´bout « Jonesin’ for language » ?

[@tysond1495]

Very funny story about using your MSA. My arabic mentor, who taught me MSA for 2-3 years and then became my Lebanese mentor, told me a story about how she busted out MSA on the phone with her sister, and she said the two of them were laughing so hard they couldn't go on. MSA is funny to Arabs! If it helps, I'm sure it wasn't your pronunciation or anything that made her laugh.

[@Robespierre-lI]

It's amusing that language simp often shows up on Dr Jones' channel. Maybe he's a Dr Jones simp. 😅

[@sjl2135]

I’m no expert, but I’ve heard about that gender difference with respect to Jordanian Arabic. Haven’t for Lebanese, Syrian or Palestinian (but maybe for some dialects of Palestinian closer to Jordanian?).

[@MrAbuHamed]

Hilarious coffee. As a Palestinian, thats our kind of humour. For what its worth, your pronunciation was great, but it sounded like Hamlet was giving ordering coffee in a soliloquy.

[@MrAbuHamed]

*coffee story.

[@jamesacolatse7447]

❤

[@maftunamaston]

There is no such thing as Israeli Arab. Israel is a fairly new country!

[@ShyGuevara]

@languagejones - you need Maha Yakoub

[@languagejones]

Yes!!!