voron wrote:Michael wrote:I'm also the kind of person who is in favor of learning MSA prior to tackling any of the regional Arabic vernaculars, contrary to the majority preference of some learners of Arabic here on UL.
This majority are who? AFAIR every single dialect learner here on Unilang knows some (or big) amount of MSA, too.
Saim wrote:Yeah, even I know a fair bit of MSA. I just don't bother to try to speak it or write it anymore, because it's not a priority.
What Saim wrote in his comment is closest to what I intended to say. You two do know MSA to varying degrees, but don't focus as much on it as you do on your dialects of choice (in this case, Levantine). Whereas, when I used to learn Arabic, I concentrated solely on MSA and wouldn't have begun to branch out into a vernacular until I attained a solid A2 in reading skills. I must also mention that I'm attracted to literary Arabic in its own right, and don't necessarily view it as a prerequisite. However, a base knowledge of it will certainly help me appreciate the divergences from the classical language of whichever dialect(s) I end up learning, as I'm highly interested in learning about the evolution of the dialects.