Dialect or fusha?
what is fusha?
fusha is classical Arabic
it's the Arabic you will read in the newspaper
hear on the television, on the news
it's the original, standard Arabic
which is often compared to
Shakespearean English
in how formal it is
now, nobody speaks fusha Arabic
except me
and people who have learned it
and, if you're being interviewed on the television
or in the newspaper
you will see fusha Arabic everywhere
it's worth choosing one and commiting to it
should you commit to learning a dialect, or should you commit to learning fusha?
that's what we are going to be discussing in this video
this is probably the biggest decision you'll make in the early stages of learning Arabic
do you learn an accent?
do you learn the
or do you learn the formal Arabic?
MSA
now, do you take this path of fusha / MSA (or a dialect)?
my advice is learn MSA first
if like me you're interested in the Arabic language in general
and you're not quite sure where you're going to end up
who you're going to be talking to and where you want to be
learn fusha
Fusha can be understood anywhere in the Middle East
so if you go to
which unfortunately I haven't
then people will understand you
am i right?
if you're from Saudi, confirm that below
if you go to Kuwait which I have and
you speak fusha people will understand you - they'll look at you funny but...
they will understand you
if you go to Egypt they will understand you
you can be understood everywhere when you speak fusha Arabic
It's much easier to find a course which teaches fusha
if you're interested in the Arabic language as a whole
and you're not sure where you might end up within the Middle East
or maybe you won't end up there at all
and you're just interested in learning Arabic
then learn MSA, learn fusha
that is my advice
to understand the roots of the language
the grammar
and the foundations of where Arabic comes from
is very worthwhile in that once you've studied Arabic
for a year maybe two years
if you've learned MSA, if you've learned Fusha
everything else starts to fall into place
when you hear people speak the local dialects
you can makes links between what they're saying in their accent
and what you've learned in the formal MSA Arabic
and then it all makes sense, it all comes together
and then you actually gain a deeper understanding in some cases than that person themselves might have
I've met a lot of English speakers who can tell me a lot more about the roots of the English language
than I can because as an English speaker, a native speaker, growing up in England
you don't analyse the language, you don't fully understand
why we say the things we do
and where the words come from
we don't understand the etymology of the words
and often it takes someone who's learned it as a second language
to actually educate you and inform you about that
which I find quite interesting
I learned MSA first and I don't regret that
it gave me the foundations, the building blocks
the tools, the necessary understanding and broad depth of knowledge
of the Arabic language
for me to then go on and understand
what all this was all about
now the exceptions as to when you might not want to learn fusha
okay, say you've got a partner who is Moroccan
or a partner who's from the gulf
and you have one interest in learning Arabic, one goal, one motivation
one driving force
which is to converse with him or her
and his or her family
now in these special circumstances, or these unique circumstances
then it's probably not the best investment of your time to learn fusha
you don't need it, you just need to be able to converse with that person
in the local dialect
perhaps then you can come back and learn some fusha as well
it will probably seem quite complicated and difficult having learned the slang
because the slang is simpler, they just miss out certain parts
the grammar isn't so important
there's less conjugation
and it generally a simplification of Arabic fusha
so my general advice in this short video is learn fusha
get a good basic grasp of what the language is built upon
and learn some phrases which are going to be universally understood
and spoken
after that, choose a dialect, maybe you wan to learn the Levantine dialect
or the Egyptian dialect
and then you can focus more on that
but immediately my advice would be - learn Fusha
there are more tips like this here and here
my channel is Arabic Mike
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and look at the description for more stuff as well
leave me a comment i read them all
and I hope to see you back here again very soon
until then...
[until next time]
[bye bye]