Arabic Q&A: Kick-off

I had so much fun speaking, teaching, and discussing Arabic language at the recent Polyglot Gathering. It was great to see how many people were also enthusiastic about the language!

I noticed that some repeated questions come up at the gathering. In the upcoming weeks, I'd like to go answer these questions here in more detail. Here are the ideas I have so far:

-How I learned Arabic

-Should I learn MSA or a dialect? Which dialect should I learn?

-The dialect(s) I speak (and why this is not a straightforward question)

-Is Arabic grammar difficult?

-Review(s) of my favorite resource(s)  

I'm also thinking of covering some material I went over in my talk, such as "hacking" Arabic dialects (especially from MSA, but also from other dialects), the style/culture of Arabic greetings, and how to read Arabic script. You can see the slides from my talk on this site. 

What questions do you have? What would you like to see answered here?

Stay tuned for the next posts!