Russian, Arabic, or Turkish

skieurope
Sat, 06 Sep 2014 00:21:58 +0000

we will be mostly learning MSA which is like almost never used

The below is something I wrote on another thread, and will repeat here.

While Modern Standard Arabic is not the spoken form that people use day-to-day, it is the standard used by the media throughout the Arab-speaking world. For that reason it is the lingua franca that is used by speakers of differing dialects. It is also what most, if not all, programs in the US will use as the basis of their instruction. Only after you have a solid background in MSA will you be able to move on to learn a colloquial dialect.

Having said that, they the NSLI-Y programs in Arabic do offer instruction in the colloquial dialect of the region as well. Be aware however, that the colloquial dialect of Morocco is much different from that of Jordan.