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[ebooktrial0001]

Hi Guys,

I have always had a pet interest in learning more Arabic, especially since I have worked a little in the Middle East.

Do you guys know any countries, programs, etc. that can learn Arabic at a decent quality for a reasonable price?

I know Yemen used to be a good place; but, it's too unstable now.

What about mosques, university programs, etc.?

[nomad soul]

Assuming you expect to just be a student (and not teaching), in terms of countries, choose any that aren't currently experiencing major socio-political unrest (with the understanding that the entire region is a potential hotbed for instability). For example, Egypt, Oman, and Jordan are options. Unless you're Muslim, classes held in mosques may not suit you nor be permissible. And yes, there are plenty of college/university Arabic language programs in the Mid East, and you may find similar programs and possibly private lessons offered locally in your city. But it also depends on the form of Arabic you want to learn---Modern Standard Arabic (AKA fusha or formal/literary Arabic) or one of the many dialects of spoken Arabic in addition to what you consider to be a "reasonable" price.

Anyway, your question is rather broad and not easy to answer because there are quite a few unknown variables. I suggest you start with a search on the Net using countries learn arabic.

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Nomad Soul is correct in that you do not provide enough information on which a commentator can give good advice. (For example, how much Arabic do you already know and why are you interested in this?)

I'd like to point out, however, that even under the best of circumstances, you're looking at a minimum of 5 years of intensive study in country to achieve any degree of fluency and reading ability to make such a project worthwhile. (Of course, a lot depends on motivation and natural linguistic abilities).

It's also important to realize that you can't really state that you "know" Arabic unless you're adept at both modern standard Arabic (so that you can understand TV broadcasts, for example, and read newspapers) and can communicate comfortably in a colloquial dialect. You've really got to know both which is one of the main reasons Arabic is considered "very difficult".....you're really learning two languages at the same time.

Having said that, Egypt and Lebanon have traditionally been the 2 locations where most of this type of Arabic learning has taken place......they're probably still the best places to attempt this type of project.

[MuscatGary]

Get a job at a College where they train Arabic teachers and the classes will be free as they need to practice their skills. Mind you they won't show up most of the time....

[desert]

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I wanted to add the following which a novice Arabic learner should be aware of:

Assuming you intend to learn a colloquial dialect and given the fact that Morocco in recent years has greatly increased in popularity as a center for western students of Arabic (mainly due to its location near Europe and its generally "safe" environment), you should be aware that the Moroccan dialect is perhaps the least useful dialect to learn. It has diverged greatly from the other major dialects (as has Maltese) and is barely understood by other Arabic speakers.

Of course, if you intend to concentrate on MSA (modern standard Arabic) - the variety used in the media, for writing and in "elevated"' speech - Morocco is fine since this variety of Arabic is uniform throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

Bottom line: as has been mentioned on this thread, you really have to decide precisely what you want to do given the great variety of possibilities a study of Arabic entails. Saying you "want to learn some Arabic" is much too vague a plan to warrant specifics.

[scot47]

SOAS in Londonistan - but it ain't cheap !

[kona]

I've researched learning Arabic before (really just for kicks, thought I might teach in the MENA someday), and I found one program that's pretty cheap and that is in, what I assume, a fairly cheap location. Zarqa University outside Amman seems like it might fit the bill for you as the tuition costs seem pretty low, and being outside of Amman, is probably a bit cheaper cost of living as compared to the Gulf.

Be warned though that Zarqa probably has little to no native English speakers, and perhaps very little English-speaking Jordanians (that's just conjecture on my part though).

I found out about the program here:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Jordan#Learn

Their site is here:

http://www.zu.edu.jo/centers/languagecenter/site/home.aspx?id=2

Best of luck!

[veiledsentiments]

From the website, it says that the Arabic for foreigners course is contracted out to a language school in Amman... which is a much better location to be in... seems to be a good option since Syria, Yemen, and Egypt, the favorites in the past are off the table nowadays.

BTW Kona, if you plan to head to the Gulf, you have little or no need for Arabic. (English is the language of commerce) If you are planning to teach in say... North Africa... I would probably wait until you are there and just learn the local dialect. In Egypt, I basically had my students teaching me survival Arabic - as I needed it - for the first few minutes of class while students were drifting in and getting settled.

VS

[ttxor1]

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[desert]

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[desert]

[SENTINEL33]

There are a lot of misconceptions about what classical Arabic is with some people going so far as to say that the language in modern newspapers is classical Arabic just as Pre-Islamic poetry is classical Arabic…

Calling modern newspaper Arabic "classical" is as preposterous as calling the "ancient Arabic dialects" "classical".

First of all, I want to point out that I previously said that the ancient Arabic dialects are classical Arabic. I did not say that classical Arabic only consists of the ancient Arabic dialects.

See my above 1st comment. It appears you're expanding and contracting the definition of "classical" to suit the situation.

In its written form, classical Arabic was a snapshot and a reconstruction of the spoken language that was used in the Pre-Islamic period and the Early Islamic period,

I'm not sure what you're saying here. What I'm saying is that "classical" Arabic was never a spoken variety of Arabic - it was never a "colloquial" used in daily discourse at home or in the marketplace. (The word that's throwing me off is your "reconstruction". Why would they want to "reconstruct" the language unless it was to fit into a preconceived notion of what it SHOULD have been....i.e......"classical" or "fusHa". But it wasn't no matter how much they wanted it to be....what they heard was a colloquial very different from the "idealized" fusHa.


Without going into theories about Proto-Semitic or where Arabic originally came from, it is clear that the early classical grammarians have taken a descriptive approach to grammar. That is to say, they let examples of language dictate the grammar rather than using preconceived notions of grammar to understand the examples. You can find famous grammarians like Sibawayhi who have gathered samples of grammatical data from the language of the Bedouin. Since those examples of ancient spoken Arabic are found in books of classical Arabic grammar, it points to the fact that ancient spoken Arabic is a part of classical Arabic.

Sorry - I belong to the camp that states that the vast majority of the "samples" gathered by the grammarians are completely fictitious and without any basis in reality. The idea that these scholarly gentlemen would wander out into the desert to seek samples of grammatical data sounds like some kind of theatrical play.

'Course, I also belong to the camp that questions the authenticity of pre-Islamic poetry to its core.

(This idea also appears in the fiction that the sons of noble families would be sent to the "desert" to "live among the Bedouin" so that they could become proficient in "authentic Arabic" - in fact, they were sent out to the desert to get them away from the desultory and frankly degenerate life of the "cities". -We in America have a modern day version of this by sending our children to "summer camp -

The idea that the "Bedouin" is the fount of "Arab authenticity" is another myth that makes for fine reading, but has no basis in reality. That's like saying that the cowboy is the fount of American authenticity.