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Winter Break


erufiku

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Ciao! Winter break is coming up soon for all of us (poor) students. Just wondering what you guys are up to during these few blessed weeks of much needed freedom.

As for me, I'm going to spend two weeks in Vancouver relaxing my lazy ass, and then come back to Montreal for New Years and catch the Cirque du Soleil show that's coming up.
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QUOTE (Scheetz @ Dec 2 2007, 01:45 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Snowboarding.



as much as possible.


Yessai, I don't know what's up with my college snowboarding club... No trips planned for this calendar year and it's been pretty much snowing (in the city) for the past few weeks :/
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I'll be chilin most of the time, and when i feel guilty enough for wasting time ill do my uni assignments, parents n rest of family going to egypt and jordan, im stuck here n UK sad.gif
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working, gettin surgery on the hand i jus broke last week, chillen with the old friends, going to dhuwan hookah a couple times a week, and of course the family stuff
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Lots of work. Probably a couple days home with the family but maybe not depending on weather and work. Hopefully enjoy my new hookah and not get it broken by some guy trying to steal it. Work on my Arabic and start on my independent study courses for next spring.

After looking at all that I am not sure how much of a break it is going to be.
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QUOTE (ori @ Dec 8 2007, 12:58 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Work on my Arabic and start on my independent study courses for next spring.


This is a question that's been nudging me for a long time. How do you even learn Arabic? As far as I know there is the Modern Arabic which is uniform for pretty much all Arabic-speaking countries but it's used in the media primarily. And then people on the street speak a "country variety" which pretty much means that they speak a different language.

I've been looking into studying some Arabic but got discouraged after consulting a few sources. Supposedly anyone who can speak the uniform language is educated enough to carry on a conversation in English/French so you need to learn a variety of Arabic to actually speak with normal people on the street. And then when you look at the number of varieties and speakers that use them it kinda takes the Top-5 Used Language of the World factor out.
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QUOTE (erufiku @ Dec 7 2007, 11:27 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
QUOTE (ori @ Dec 8 2007, 12:58 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Work on my Arabic and start on my independent study courses for next spring.


This is a question that's been nudging me for a long time. How do you even learn Arabic? As far as I know there is the Modern Arabic which is uniform for pretty much all Arabic-speaking countries but it's used in the media primarily. And then people on the street speak a "country variety" which pretty much means that they speak a different language.

I've been looking into studying some Arabic but got discouraged after consulting a few sources. Supposedly anyone who can speak the uniform language is educated enough to carry on a conversation in English/French so you need to learn a variety of Arabic to actually speak with normal people on the street. And then when you look at the number of varieties and speakers that use them it kinda takes the Top-5 Used Language of the World factor out.


Hey up, i thought id share my experience on this. Arabic is one of the richest languages in the world, with 5000 roots in the language its grammer is extremely complex, Im half egyptian half english, and have a Jordanian step mum,so i already had an advantage when i came to study arabic in my gap year, i had the basics down when it came to reading and writing and i could speak fluent egyptian arabic, and could understand the Jordanian dialect, now i can hold a conversation in modern standard arabic and read and write more confidently. Most people when they come to study they will try to study both a dialect and modern standard arabic, and the dialect they choose is egyptian because its the most widely understood across the arab world because of the amount of media that is produced in egyptian arabic, meaning, tv shows, music, and movies.

I decided to study arabic in my gap year in egypt, one to get to know my culture n stuff better and two, the best way to learn a language is to practice it, so living there for a year means you have to use your arabic like it or not, if you don't pratice it you will forget it instantly, some of the most popular schools for forginerns to learn arabic are in egypt and syria. If you want any more info ill be happy to help.
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QUOTE (erufiku @ Dec 7 2007, 11:27 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
QUOTE (ori @ Dec 8 2007, 12:58 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Work on my Arabic and start on my independent study courses for next spring.


How do you even learn Arabic?


Well right now I'm just learning modern standard Arabic with the help of Rosetta Stone. Hopefully if things go well I will end up in Morocco or Jordan in the Peace Corps in about 2 years so I will have a base in Modern Standard Arabic and be able to pick up a dialect by direct immersion via living their. It is not an easy language to learn but it was something I wanted to do.
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I'll mostly be studying for the LSAT trying to go to law school... But I'll probably drive down to Miami to visit my family before school starts again
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Scimita_R and ori: props to you guys, it looks like you're learning two languages instead of one wink.gif As for me, I don't think I could do it... I'm taking it one at a time. Japanese for now, then French and maybe Italian later.
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