不可能學好的阿拉伯文

讀到這篇英國人寫的文章，寫她學了阿拉伯文近十年還是毫不流利，這段頗有同感︰

I think my experience was a common one: Arabic soup. You’d mix your modern standard with Egyptian g’s, Levantine flourishes, international-ish noises like “yalla” that were our generation’s “ciao,” and malformed repetitions of words you’d heard your Middle Eastern friends say. What came out of your mouth – I imagine – was the equivalent of, in Europe, if you’d stitched Spanish syntax into phrases you’d heard on Turkish soap operas and added – Achtung! – exclamations of Hollywood German and thought you were speaking pretty good European. This is the Arabic I currently speak, a mutant strain I concocted in which I don’t know what ingredients I’m really messing with.

我也學了四年多了，溝通可以應付，新聞、報章能基本明白，但他們之間原速的「方言」我只能聽懂一半，埃及以西的更是完全聽不懂。但想到中文「方言」聽不明白的也很多，就安心了。

學阿文的人都這樣吧，總是先學標準語，因為聽得懂的人多，然後再學方言。但學一種已夠難了，還要記幾種，結果總是最自然地多用標準語，但阿拉伯人不是這樣的，日常對話中只有書面、文雅的字才用標準語，一般動詞不會用，於是我們這類學生就會顯得很奇怪。