Columbus Business Daily

What country should I immerse myself in order to learn Arabic?

I want to live in an Arabic speaking country in order to learn the language. What Middle Eastern country do you recommend? I need one that is friendly with foreigners and tourists.

Public Comments

1. I recommend you stay in the USA (that is, if you are presently here) and use resources available to you here. People tend to pick up terrorist and/or religious fanatic and intolerance influences in that region of the world for some reason. There are no foreign friendly countries there. France is more foreign friendly, but they speak to you in French and if you don't know the language, good luck. Then they bad mouth you after you walk away. Try England. They have a growing Muslim population but there are some violence inciting Imams there. Bad idea, IMHO. . .
2. no arab country actually speaks the standard arabic (fus-ha) but each country speaks a dialect of arabic. in my opinion, countries like syria, jordan, lebanon, and palestine have the nearest dialects to the modern standard arabic that you hear on the news channels. egyptian dialect is cool but its a little bit far from Fus-ha. oh and as far as terrorists and that kind of bullshit, don't worry, arabs are very kind, loving and welcoming people. what you see on TV is just the doings of a minority of sick minded people who do whatever they want in the name of religion, but islam is all about peace, actually, islam is an arabic word which is derived from the root سلم salama which means be in peace.
3. united arab of emirates
4. I agree with Ronnie's answer. One thing, though, that should be considered is what you plan on using the language for. Are you trying to learn arabic in order to acquire a job in business or something else in foreign relations? If that's the case then Ronnie is absolutely correct and you need to learn 'fus-ha'. Which is a standardized version of arabic that is used in everything from college essays, to news broadcasts on networks like al jazeera, or al irraqiya. However, if you're trying to learn a dialect of arabic that will enable you to simply communicate and speak the language for recreational purposes, then you may consider living in Egypt. Egyptian dialect is the most widely understood dialect due to the fact that arabic pop culture largely stems from egypt. Most arabic movies and TV shows are filmed in egypt and use egyptian dialect. When speaking socially with arabs you will rarely find a conversation being spoken in 'fus-ha'. It would almost (but not quite) be like finding english speaking people talking to each other in an extremely proper, almost old-english sort of way..... At least that's the closest I can come to describing it. Anyway, if you're looking for a safe place with great hospitality then I would strongly suggest Jordan... but that's just me.
5. Lebanon or Egypt , I think those countries won't feel like ur diffrent from them oh , and Dubai 2!
6. I would suggest Egypt. It is full of tourists, and many foreigners live here, and Egyptian Arabic is also the most widely understood Arabic dialect because it is the center of Arabic media (movies, cinema, music...) Of course you can learn Standar Arabic as well, and it is more or less very cheap to live in. Oh, and I am a little biased towards Egypt because I am Egyptian and love my country, and I a sure so will you :D Anyways, I have known before several foreigners who came special to Egypt to learn Arabic, so yeah, Egypt is a good choice.