Welcome to Lebanon! The country where East meets West, bordered by the beautiful Mediterranean sea and home to grand green Cedar forests and high snow covered mountains. We focus on everything Lebanese; the people and rich cultural diversity, the lush and vibrant nature, our world-renowned national cuisine and a history that stretches back to ancient Roman ruins and the birth of the Phoenician alphabet. We're a trilingual sub, submissions made in English, Arabic or French are welcome.
Guide
Continuing my posts about the most requested questions, today we will try to help people who want to learn or improve their Arabic language or Lebanese dialect. This is a work-in-progress, I will edit it to improve it, please post any suggestions and modifications you have!
Let's start with the basics. When we say the Arabic language, we mean Modern Standard Arabic or Fos7a. In Lebanon, the official language is Arabic. If you want to communicate with the government or send/receive any official document, it's going to be in Arabic (MSA). If you turn on the TV and listen to the news, it's going to be Arabic (MSA). If you read or write anything (newspaper, books, magazines, etc) it's going to be in Arabic (MSA).
Having said all that, MSA or Fos7a is NOT spoken in Lebanon, or any other country for that matter. In Lebanon, we speak the Lebanese Arabic dialect. The Lebanese dialect, has a lot of similarities with Arabic in terms of sentence structure, but a lot of word pronunciation is different. The Lebanese dialect also changes a lot of the vocabulary of the language by borrowing words from other languages like Syriac, French, English.. etc
If you speak fos7a in Lebanon, everyone will understand you (or mostly a lot of people will), but you'll look so weird. It's like you're trying to speak Shakespearean English with american people.
So the first thing you need to decide is which language you want to learn. You can start by answering the question, why are you learning the language?
Are you originally Lebanese and thinking about visiting/moving to Lebanon?
Do you want to reconnect with your extended Lebanese family?
Are you in a relationship with a Lebanese person?
Do you want to talk with a Lebanese person?
OR
You want a language for business with the entire Arab world?
You want to listen to news?
You want to read books?
Basically Lebanese dialect is good enough to communicate verbally in Lebanon (~5 million people) and the Arabic MSA language is good to communicate (in written form mainly and verbally sometimes) with the entire Arab world (~400 million)
Lebanese Dialect
As mentioned before, the Lebanese dialect is NOT a language. It doesn't have a stable/strong rules. The grammar and vocab are completely made to make verbal communication easy, and it's not a written language (there aren't a lot of formal books or publications in Lebanese). It is made for verbal communication.
Don't worry though, you can learn it, but in order to do so, you need to focus as much as possible on your oral exercises. The best way to learn or improve the language is by immersing yourself in it, thus my first advice is to study it in Lebanon. There are several centers that teach Lebanese dialect formally such as Birlitz Language Center in Hamra. You can join a class or have a private tutor and learn the Lebanese dialect. They have professional teachers and they made study materials (practice books and audio CDs) just for teaching the Lebanese dialect.
If you can't travel or can't afford that, the next step is finding a Lebanese teacher on italki or Natakallam or Preply. This is a paid service, you will pick a teacher and meet him on Zoom/Skype and have a private session learning the language.
Resources:
1- Italki: https://www.italki.com/teachers/arabic?from%5B0%5D=LB
2- New & Improved resources for learning Lebanese dialect (all free!)
3- Built some resources for learning Lebanese dialect
Follow Lebanese Youtubers or Instagram accounts. This will force you to listen to A LOT of Lebanese and might help you improve your vocabulary. Some of them are (please post suggestions to add to this list):
Social Media
Some Instagram accounts you can follow:
Music
You can listen to Lebanese songs, to get a sense of the language in a nice way:
-
Let's make a collaborative Spotify playlist for Lebanese music!
-
Lebanese Children songs like Killon 3endon Siyarat - كلّن عندن سيّارات
Books
Finally you can get some books that are made about the subject such as:
A Reference Grammar of Syrian Arabic by Mark Cowell, Colloquial Levantine Arabic by Muhammad Al-Masri,
Arabic Language
It's much easier to learn because it has much more resources. While you might find few teachers trying to teach Lebanese dialect, I am sure you will find thousands of teachers trying to teach Arabic. These teachers can be Lebanese or can be from any other Arabic country, the language is exactly the same. The resources to study Arabic are widely available, and a lot is for free. If you are in Lebanon and want to learn this language, you can a apply for a course in the American University of Beirut
You can start buy getting Darajat, it's perfect for beginners.
To learn Arabic you can start by using italki or Natakallam or Preply or equivalent services. The best way to learn a language is to speak it with a native.
You can use Pimsleur program which is super effective to start from scratch learning a new language.
You can purchase the Assimil Arabic with Ease, it has proven to be a very effective way to learn a new language.
For more information check Learn Arabic Subreddit
Most importantly is to make yourself listen to this language A LOT. Watch series, movies, Youtube, listen to songs and try as much as possible to practice new vocabulary with anyone you can meet.
In the end, learning a new language is always going to be difficult. It will take a lot of time and patience to master. You have to work hard and study hard, but eventually you'll get there. Don't give up hope.
Good luck
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Thanks for the info! Just wanted to mention that Pimsleur offers a Lebanese dialect course in addition to MSA and Egyptian courses. It’s our Eastern Arabic course: https://www.pimsleur.com/learn-arabic-eastern/subscription-all-access