My Al-Mawrid Electronic dictionary broke and the manufacturer wants me to pay $100US to have it fixed including a 2 month warranty. Meanwhile a brand new and more advanced Al-Mawrid BAS1875 costs $300US with presumably a 1 year warranty.
My theory is that the effort required to look up a word with a book dictionary is of benefit because that effort encourages your brain to remember the word and save you looking it up next time. Whereas the convenience of the electronic dictionary perhaps could lead to it becoming a permanent crutch.
I would have just repaired it or bought a new one but having no income has really forced me to be really careful about how I spend my money and $100US or $300US really goes a long way on living expenses in Yemen. After my planned holiday to UAE, Egypt and Morocco in February next year I could very possibly run out of money and be forced to go back to Australia early.
So, my fellow language students, travel enthusiasts and whoever else happens to be reading my little blog, do you think electronic dictionaries are worthwhile? Please post your comments.
The other topic I would like to hear other students opinions on is Arabic dialects. Throughout my Arabic experience I keep hearing from other students about how vastly different the dialects of Arabic are. Now I admit that Moroccan is, from what I've heard, far different from the rest and it's mixed with quite a lot of French. Egypt's dialect is quite a bit different as well but well recognised around the Middle East due to the exposure of their films. But from knowledge of Arabic the extent of variation between Yemen, Saudi, Jordan, Syria and Iraq is exaggerated by the students I've talked to and read from. I've heard students mention Levantine as though it's as much a different language to the Arabic spoken in Yemen as Italian is from English - but I honestly do not hear the major differences. There's a few different words for the same thing and the negation of verbs can be different, the present tense is a bit different in Lebanese but these are all simple adjustments. Perhaps because the word choices are different students think they are hearing different dialects.
I've even heard it said that the Sana'ain (?) Arabic is different to the Arabic spoken in Taiz and if you go there they'll never understand you or equally if you go to some of the tribal villages. So I asked my teacher this and he said the only differences were the pronunciation of qaf and jiim. So who's fibbing on this? The students who don't know the language properly yet, or the teachers and the language schools who are trying to trick the students into believing the Arabic they learn in the classroom will be useful everywhere in the Middle East.
With the Yemeni dialect words I've learnt I only know of a couple that are different to MSA and then they're abbreviations of the MSA words. The only word I know of that I think is just dialect is the Yemeni word for 'to go', which happens to be the same dialect word used in Egypt and Lebanon.
similarly, the other day I met a Swiss girl and a guy from England mentioned something to us which she did not understand. She said that she did not understand his dialect. Now being a native speaker I can happily promise you that there was not one word that he used that was unique to the British dialect. Every word he mentioned is wholly a part of American or Australian or any other native English speakers vocabulary. In this case at least the dialect thing was an excuse used by a language student.
It would be fair to say to a Yemeni that American's don't undestand the Australia dialect very well either. I have to speak more slowly and clearly around Americans and then they still misunderstand me at times. I know that the Australians that acted for Baywatch had to adjust their innuciation for their parts on the TV show so that American audiences can understand them. But this isn't the sort of big deal that you should warn foreigners learning English about to make sure they don't learn the kind of English that won't be understood in America. You make a few adjustments over a few days or maybe a month and then you're sweet and you keep in mind there's a few uniquely Australian words but if you run into them there's amble other common words to explain what your dialect word means.
At this point all I can say is I don't know but I'm inclined to agree more with the native speakers than the students. As I learn more I'll continue to reevaluate my position and blog about it.
My theory is that the effort required to look up a word with a book dictionary is of benefit because that effort encourages your brain to remember the word and save you looking it up next time. Whereas the convenience of the electronic dictionary perhaps could lead to it becoming a permanent crutch.
I would have just repaired it or bought a new one but having no income has really forced me to be really careful about how I spend my money and $100US or $300US really goes a long way on living expenses in Yemen. After my planned holiday to UAE, Egypt and Morocco in February next year I could very possibly run out of money and be forced to go back to Australia early.
So, my fellow language students, travel enthusiasts and whoever else happens to be reading my little blog, do you think electronic dictionaries are worthwhile? Please post your comments.
The other topic I would like to hear other students opinions on is Arabic dialects. Throughout my Arabic experience I keep hearing from other students about how vastly different the dialects of Arabic are. Now I admit that Moroccan is, from what I've heard, far different from the rest and it's mixed with quite a lot of French. Egypt's dialect is quite a bit different as well but well recognised around the Middle East due to the exposure of their films. But from knowledge of Arabic the extent of variation between Yemen, Saudi, Jordan, Syria and Iraq is exaggerated by the students I've talked to and read from. I've heard students mention Levantine as though it's as much a different language to the Arabic spoken in Yemen as Italian is from English - but I honestly do not hear the major differences. There's a few different words for the same thing and the negation of verbs can be different, the present tense is a bit different in Lebanese but these are all simple adjustments. Perhaps because the word choices are different students think they are hearing different dialects.
I've even heard it said that the Sana'ain (?) Arabic is different to the Arabic spoken in Taiz and if you go there they'll never understand you or equally if you go to some of the tribal villages. So I asked my teacher this and he said the only differences were the pronunciation of qaf and jiim. So who's fibbing on this? The students who don't know the language properly yet, or the teachers and the language schools who are trying to trick the students into believing the Arabic they learn in the classroom will be useful everywhere in the Middle East.
With the Yemeni dialect words I've learnt I only know of a couple that are different to MSA and then they're abbreviations of the MSA words. The only word I know of that I think is just dialect is the Yemeni word for 'to go', which happens to be the same dialect word used in Egypt and Lebanon.
similarly, the other day I met a Swiss girl and a guy from England mentioned something to us which she did not understand. She said that she did not understand his dialect. Now being a native speaker I can happily promise you that there was not one word that he used that was unique to the British dialect. Every word he mentioned is wholly a part of American or Australian or any other native English speakers vocabulary. In this case at least the dialect thing was an excuse used by a language student.
It would be fair to say to a Yemeni that American's don't undestand the Australia dialect very well either. I have to speak more slowly and clearly around Americans and then they still misunderstand me at times. I know that the Australians that acted for Baywatch had to adjust their innuciation for their parts on the TV show so that American audiences can understand them. But this isn't the sort of big deal that you should warn foreigners learning English about to make sure they don't learn the kind of English that won't be understood in America. You make a few adjustments over a few days or maybe a month and then you're sweet and you keep in mind there's a few uniquely Australian words but if you run into them there's amble other common words to explain what your dialect word means.
At this point all I can say is I don't know but I'm inclined to agree more with the native speakers than the students. As I learn more I'll continue to reevaluate my position and blog about it.
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