Arabic-L:PEDA:Colloquial First

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Fri 20 Jul 2007
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Colloquial First
2) Subject:Colloquial First

-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------
1)
Date: 20 Jul 2007
From:"J" <jmurg at ttlc.net>
Subject:Colloquial First

Dear Colleagues:
I studied colloquial first at Georgetown U. in the late 60s:  2  
semesters, 8
credits per semester.  This was required of all Arabic majors.  Then  
we did
MSA and only MSA for the rest of the undergraduate program.

My only regret is that there was not a second year of colloquial and  
that so
much of the focus of so much of the MSA study (I eventually got a  
Ph.D.) was
on i'raab, parsing sentences, and defending one's choice of case  
endings and
mood markers -- and not on useful vocabulary and expressions and such.

If I had it to do all over again I'd love to try the integrated approach
used by Munther or the approach that Mustafa is planning. I  
especially like
the idea of conversing in colloquial but reading and writing MSA.  It  
irks
me to be able to completely vowel an Arabic text more accurately than  
most
Arabic native speakers but not to know how to say some simple thing in
colloquial.

And I might add, familiarity with colloquial is very helpful in MSA  
reading
comprehension and for translation, which is my field, because  
regardless of
what some people would like, real Arabs use regionalisms and  
colloquialisms
all the time in their supposedly MSA texts.

Glad I did colloquial first,
-- Jackie Murgida

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2)
Date: 20 Jul 2007
From:"John Joseph Colangelo" <yaacolangelo at hotmail.com>
Subject:Colloquial First

I really have to apologize to Dil as well as the others for insisting  
on this question but my next question is for Prof. Munther Younes who  
I quote:

"My observations of instructors in other programs, where MSA is used
for conversation, is that teachers are more comfortable speaking
English than Arabic with their students. This is only natural,
because English is a naturally spoken language, while MSA is not.  
I,as an Arab, find it silly and completely unnatural to ask my  
students  in Fusha about what they did over the weekend. I think
that my  colleagues who are native speakers of Arabic would agree
with me that  it is more natural to ask a student "ween ruHt yoom
issabt" and  "Where did you go Saturday" than "?ayna dhahabta yawma
ssabti"?

Then wouldn't it also be hilarious to watch the news on any Arabic  
television channel where fusha is used and not dialect?
Thanks again,
John Joseph Colangelo

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End of Arabic-L:  20 Jul 2007