Hi Kim!

You’re already off to a great start due to the fact that you don’t find Arabic difficult! And yep, it’s all about your language goals. Since your current goal is to read and understand media sources, then MSA is the way to go. I wish you the best in your language journey! 🙂

Hey Kristin!

I recommend beginners to start with a bit of MSA first but since you already have a good grasp of Amiyya, I would only go back and learn MSA if you want to read newspapers/novels or understand the news channels.

But if you want to speak it “fluently” (I’m assuming you’re talking about more advanced topics?), I rather you watch interviews/talk shows such as those on Roya Channel, and mimic the talking style.

The sentence structure is still essentially Ammiyya-like but being peppered with advanced vocabulary and set phrases that are found in MSA. If you want to engage in media-related topics such as politics, another idea is to get a MSA book on Media Arabic where you can learn the vocabulary and phrases.

If you want to speak more fluently, it’s not about learning MSA but consciously having conversations in topics that you have never/rarely talked about and going from there.

If I can assume that you’ve reached some sort of plateau (and thus the reason you felt the need to speak fluently), do check out this article I found useful: https://www.mezzoguild.com/language-learning-plateau/ or simply google advice on how to overcome the learning plateau.

There is also another website I recently stumbled upon that I found interesting: https://conversationstartersworld.com/250-conversation-starters/. This is another way to check if you can speak Amiyya on a wide range of topics and practicing them will eventually make you speak “fluently” 🙂

Hope this helps!
Lyn

I am not sure if you will see this since it has been a while. I really appreciate your article. I have lived in Jordan for the past several years on and off (my dad is with the US Embassy and I am a university student) so I have a fairly strong grasp on Ammiya (Jordanian dialect). I have always been able to go back and forth with a conversation and can understand a fair amount, but have been trying to take it more seriously recently to speak it fluently. That being said, since I already have a grasp on Ammiya in such a way, do you think I should go back and try to learn Fusha/MSA? I have never looked at it at all, and all of my understandings of Arabic just comes from talking to Jordanians and living in the Middle East. Would love to hear what you think.

Kristin

Hi Nicole, I’m glad that you felt the same way 🙂 In my opinion, having MSA background knowledge before learning a dialect helps in the long run.

Although I must add that jumping straight into learning a dialect as a beginner is very tempting due to the fact that nobody speaks MSA on a daily basis.

Hi Matthew!

My idea of a basic understanding of MSA is a holistic one, not separated by grammar nor vocabulary. If you want to have a basic understanding of MSA before switching to dialect, I would suggest getting a beginner/level 1 MSA textbook and studying the first couple of chapters thoroughly or at least half of the book’s content.

The point of switch over is entirely up to you although I studied MSA for the first four months intensively before switching over to Spoken Arabic.

Note that it depends on your language goals. If your end goal is to simply converse with natives, feel free to jump into Spoken Arabic straightaway.

But if your end goal is to reach an advanced level and speak “Spoken Educated Arabic” (like the ones you will hear in interviews and talk shows), then having a basic understanding in MSA will make it easier for you to jump back into MSA studies should you need to (versus learning MSA from zero after knowing Spoken Arabic).

I hope this makes sense 🙂
Lyn

Thanks!

-Matthew

That’s a good point, Boris. Natives definitely “learn” to speak Amiyya before MSA. Infants are able to acquire the language (dialect) naturally due to growing up in households surrounded by conversations.

However, as non-native speakers, we don’t have that advantage nor are we placed in the same circumstances as native infants. Thus I don’t believe that we can learn the same way native speakers do. Do human beings ever remember “learning” their mother tongue?

Thus the reason why I advocate for learning basic MSA first is because it allows us (as non-native speakers) to tackle the Arabic language structurally instead of being confused over the flexible nature of dialects.

This is just my point of view. Of course, if you’re learning Amiyya and making good progress without the need for MSA, then that’s great.