Name: Aka !zsH/vLoGic 2006-07-21 14:27
Hey guys,
I'm thinking about learning Arabic - no need for dire warnings, I've already heard about open and closed words, word-morphing, and horror stories about 3-forms of each letter, no-vowel writing, 13-form verbs and so on...
But I need some advice - which version would be the most practically useful from the standpoint of someone who doesn't plan to travel to any given Arabic country, but may still need to speak it without sounding too weird. Is Classical Arabic really the best way to go, or would I do better to learn Gulf Arabic or another dialect?
I'm thinking about learning Arabic - no need for dire warnings, I've already heard about open and closed words, word-morphing, and horror stories about 3-forms of each letter, no-vowel writing, 13-form verbs and so on...
But I need some advice - which version would be the most practically useful from the standpoint of someone who doesn't plan to travel to any given Arabic country, but may still need to speak it without sounding too weird. Is Classical Arabic really the best way to go, or would I do better to learn Gulf Arabic or another dialect?