MIDDLE EAST JOB HUNTING; SOME ARABIC LANGUAGE HINTS

1. Altho it is true that Moroccan Arabic is the least mutually comprehensible diialect of the several Arabic dialects, (except for Maltese), a study of Classical Arabic won't help you much in the Gulf.. The fact is, all the spoken dialects (which are never written) are quite different from Classical Arabic --or more properly - Modern Standard Written Arabic-- (unless you're studying medieval texts). An added complication is that the written is never "spoken" at the conversational level, and, as mentioned, the spoken is never written. There are some variant exceptions to this rule (for example, radio and TV Arabic is a simplilfied spoken form of written Arabic).

2. The bottom line is this: if one wants to "know" Arabic, one is obliged to study 2 courses: written Arabic (so tha t one can read newspapers, magazines, understand media Arabic etc.), and a particular spoken dialect (so that one can do grocery shopping etc.).

3. The lingua franca in the Gulf is English (or variants thereof), followed closely by Malayalam and Urdu. Arabic, believe it or not, is practically useless in this area, thanks to the millions upon millions of non-Arabic speaking foreign workers who man the service industries. One practically has to go out of one's way to learn and use Arabic here.

4. In my experience, a Westerner applying for a job in the Middle East claiming to know Arabic, is viewed with skepticism and some suspicion by employers for a variety of reasons. At educational institutions, the thinking is that any Westerner purporting to be interested in the language and culture of the area (an astonishing declaration to many Arabs), is most likely to be interested in a job to further his own interests...i.e. he's coming to the Gulf not to teach English but to improve his Arabic. His English classes , so the thinking goes, really become Arabic classes, to the detriment of the students. In my opinion, advertizing a knowledge of Arabic (or even an interest in it) is a detriment to the job seeker.

Tim Perior
upsilon@juno.com