Chris79

Sounds like a plan, think your a little bit better at it than me though. Will have a chat to you on Friday about it.

Eeyore

Just a cheap one called "Read & Speak Arabic" that I picked up in Magrudy's not long after I arrived.

You'll need to put the hours in over a period of years to get to that stage. I can pick out odd words when they do that, but actually fully comprehending what they're saying at the speed they're saying it is another matter

Of course, in terms of spoken Arabic it's important *not* to learn classical Arabic if you want to have everyday conversations with people. Nobody speaks classical Arabic in their everyday life (although everyone understands it) and so if you try and use it, you'll probably provoke smiles, if not outright laughter, for speaking in such a flowery, formal manner.

Bonny Boy

Yes, reading the script is not too difficult, but learning what the words mean and the grammatical structures is a little more complex.

I like the literal transliterations they use on establishment nameboards - for example, somewhere called 'blue moon' will also have a sign with the Arabic letters that make this noise, rather than the Arabic words for 'blue' and 'moon'.

In general you learn Classical Arabic, which is the equivalent of flowery Elizabethan English, but broadly understood throughout the (educated) Arabic world. However, in everyday usage there are many local dialects and forms; I studied Arabic in Bahrain and, for example, there were differences even between Muharraq and Manama.

Unlike English, the Arabic language has Holy connotations, being the language of the Holy Quran. So be careful with it!!

Eeyore

That's a problem IMO; lots of courses do teach classical Arabic, when really they should be teaching something like Levantine Arabic - colloquial, but widely understood throughout the Arab world.

shakh your bootie

The 'Teach yourself' series does both MSA (Modern Standard Arabic, which is high-end Egyptian as that is where the MSA standard was developed), but they also do a Gulf Arabic book with CD (although there are many dialects & accents in the Khaleej, too)....

SOAS have a good suggested textbook list on their website:

http://www.soas.ac.uk/languagecentre...bic/textbooks/

jvr20

i looked at all this when i came out here but what with not actually dealing with any native speakers on a daily basis I gave up... it's only the voice over women on Dubai One and MBC who talk to me in Arabic (with the exception of my former laundry man - thanks to whom I can now argue numbers up to about 50 or so over disagreements with my bill!)

That said, it's amazing how much sinks in without knowing it... in Syria I cold hold my own with souq bargaining and small transactions, taxi fares, getting directions etc.

W10

You can pick up the basic alphabet in a few hours.

Once you get used to the way some letters appear in the begining, middle and end of words then you can start picking it up and learning to read whole words instead of letters.

I hardly ever practice but I can read at the level of, say a 5 year old. I look at a word and about 3 seconds later say what it is.

W10

That's because when businesses are being charged for translation, it costs about a lot less to get the literal translation, rather than the translation into arabic words.

The one thing that amuses me more is the lack of imagination shown by Emirati government institutions. All of the company names are simply arabic translations of their product.

Eg:
Amaar = construction
Tasjeel = register/sign
Tamweel = finance
Nakheel = palm

W10

Union co-op have books for kids with the characters and how they are all written one by one.

jvr20

Also Taqa = power (or energy?)
Masraf
Tasweer

shakh your bootie

Tamweel - financing
Tabreed - cooling
Etisalat - communicating....
takreer = fertlizing?????
Hey, at least they do what they say on the packet....

Cham128

might be worth noting although learning arabic script is easy enough but actually learning to read it is another thing. knowing which vowels are being used (as they're not normally written) can be complicated if you have no spoken knowledge...

...saying that though learning spoken arabic at the same time as the script is a lot easier... as is learning the pronounciation...

I actually find it easier to read and pronounce arabic written in script than i do in latin aliteration

Sam FTQ

Oddly enough, so do I.

W10

They keep putting 3 into the latin phonetic version :-)

ya3ni

peterd

anybody know any courses that are available in Al Ain?