Duolingo is one of the most popular language learning apps. It provides a free and wide range of language courses for people starting from different mother tongues, including Scandinavian and Klingon. But, it's missing one of the most basic and demanded courses, Arabic for English speakers. Duolingo did announce some years ago that it will launch the course, but keeps delaying the date. Do you think this is done to keep the divide between the people?
Of course there are alternatives, but the app seems rightfully popular.
>The app has about 300 million registered users across the world. >Alexa rank 863 (May 2018) >Launched 30 November 2011 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duolingo
In Israel (my country) it used to be that you learned "Literary Arabic" in school (lots of grammar, i'm thinking it's mostly relevant for the foreign intelligence industrial complex, to discourage the student and maintain the culture gap), which leaves you unable to speak to the person on the street. Fortunately, most Israeli Arabs can talk Hebrew. I was told that Russian students were taught English the same way, finishing school proficient in grammar but unable to converse. From what I heard, today's Israeli curriculum teaches the local dialect of Palestinian Arabic which is good.
I think the Duolingo course would be especially relevant for Europeans, with the immigration and all. Of course leaving it up to a private company or NGO is unfortunate in a way, maybe it should be a government initiative (regardless if you are pro / against the immigration).
Arabic is a complex language that doesn't always have 1:1 translation.
>user we have significantly harder languages like Chinese and Korean though.
Ive been doing Arabic for about three years and have had similar problems with teaching tools. Either they aren't really that great or they drown in details. Imo Arabic as a language has not had the time or the resources to develop significant academic materials like most Asian and European languages.
As for the conspiracy of yours. I don't understand why a language learning application would go so far as to sabotage their own product to arbitrarily keep people apart when other products, school's, and just straight immersion still exist.
Luke Robinson
>In Israel (my country) Fuck off, kike.I'm also from there
I'm relieved i'm not the only one who found Arabic resources to be limited.
Regarding the conspiracy, the company is heavily funded by Google, which isn't known for it's ethics. Just a thought, could be wrong. >Duolingo is funded by Union Square Venture Partners ($3.3 million in 2011), New Enterprise Associates ($15 million), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers ($20 million), Google Capital ($45 million), Ashton Kutcher's A-Grade Investments, and Tim Ferriss. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duolingo#Investors
And while school's and immersion can be great, the reality is that the masses don't have time or money. Studying for free with an engaging app for a few minutes a day seems like a preferred option.
Logan King
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Xavier Rodriguez
Thanks, I forgot about Jow Forums and might post there. Sorry if this isn't the right venue.
Juan Myers
Hi :)
Julian Sanders
>/x/ lol
Lincoln Lee
Why on Earth would anyone want to learn Arabic if you're not a convert to Islam? Literal meme-tier language with no use in the modern world.
Dominic Rogers
who says I'm not a convert to islam
Landon Rogers
Preach it brother. I also think there should be a "Lao for German speakers" course in Duolingo.
I find it extremely irritating that Duolingo just straight up ignores the huge demand for this course. I will boycott their services until they release that course.
Dylan Bell
cringe
Asher Myers
This. If Europeans learn Arabic, it will just cause the Arab immigrants to think that they can speak Arabic here, rather than learning our language.
Andrew Powell
Nobody speaks "Arabic" >inb4 You can use the Duolingo course as a gateway to Semitic languages and to learn some Arabic words, but that's as far as it goes. You won't actually understand the speech of native speakers most of the time, but you'll hear Arabic words every now and then.
Luke Myers
Learning the language of your enemy is invaluable , my polack friend
Thomas Kelly
Who cares? Duolingo is for retards who think they can become fluent in a language from a shitty gamified app.
Sorry in advance if my explanation isn't clear. So-called "dialects of Arabic" are very divergent, although they share a lexicon consisting of some Arabic loanwords (from MSA or assimilated from older Arabic or just non-Arabic (Aramaic, etc.) Semitic words that retained but seem similar to their Arabic counterpart) For example, Levantine colloquial speech consists mainly of words of Aramaic origin, and the sentence structure resembles that of Aramaic. It happens that some words of Aramaic origin also sound similar to words of Arabic origin, but that is due to their shared Semitic ancestry. Words that are borrowed from MSA into Levantine either get assimilated or retain their pronunciation if they are difficult to assimilate. You can generally group the dialects into groups such as: Levantine Egyptian Maghrebi Peninsular
Robert Wilson
I'm no expert, but I think their talking about the difference between Literary Arabic (used in media, books etc. and is quite similar in all Arab speaking countries) vs. local dialects. The local dialects have simpler grammar than Literary Arabic and are commonly used by the masses who many times cannot converse in Literary Arabic. The dialects differ from one another in pronunciations and vocabulary. An Arab from Israel can talk to an Arab from Egypt, but it can be difficult (not sure if you can compare it to German - Austria - Dutch).
How different is an Arabic dialect such as Gulf Arabic from Fusha? How does a language learner go about learning Arabic for communication?
Ayden Johnson
Fairly different. Like I said, you would generally be able to catch an Arabic word here and there. There are so many sound changes and so many loanwords from other languages and so many simplifications from fusha, different sentence structure, etc. If you didn't have enough exposure to the different dialects as a kid, it would become difficult to understand what the other person from the other region is saying. >How does a language learner go about learning Arabic for communication? I generally hear of people learning MSA and then picking a dialect, but don't take my word for it, it's better to do your own research.
