Four out of the top ten countries with the highest rates of internet penetration in the world are Gulf Arab countries.* If you don’t know anyone who speaks the Gulf dialect, all you have to do is look. The Gulf is the most technologically developed region in the Arab world and pushing to be a world leading region.

Most Arabs understand the Egyptian and Levantine dialects because Egypt and the Levant were the cultural hubs of the Arab world in the 20th century. Our generation and the generations of our parents and grandparents were exposed to a lot of Egyptian and Levantine media. But in the age of the internet and YouTube and independent content creators, much of the content is being created in the Gulf. The Gulf dialect is gaining prominence.

* Source: <a href="https://www.internetworldstats.com/top25.htm" target="_blank">https://www.internetworldstats.com/top25.htm</a>;

Hey Lauren!

I've been learning Levantine Arabic for a few years now.

For resources on Levantine Arabic such as shows, podcasts etc...I've written articles for TalkInArabic which you can check them out here: <a href="https://www.talkinarabic.com/blog/" target="_blank">https://www.talkinarabic.com/blog/</a>;

Also, I have a blog where I share my knowledge about the dialect: www.thelevantongue.com

Hope this helps and all the best!

I wouldn't recommend learning Arabic. It's not that Arabic is "too difficult" to learn or it's not worthwhile. On the contrary. Arabic is an <em>extremely </em>fascinating language, which never fails to fascinate you. That's being said, there're two reasons why I, as a foreigner, wouldn't go for Arabic.

First, there isn't one single language called "Arabic". There're plenty, and they differ, more or less, substantially from one another. If you mange to learn one, then for the biggest part, you'll be able to actively use it in the country where that "language" is spoken.

Second, the scarcity of the online langaue learning materials (good movies and books, podcasts, websites etc.) for Standard Arabic is demotivating, let alone for the dialect you're willing to learn. Compared to the material available for say Chinese or Russian, that for Arabic is embarrassing. To me, it seems the only way to learn Arabic is technically to take a language course. Self-learning Arabic is difficult.

With all that being said, if you're actually determined to learn "Arabic", then I'd suggest Egyptian. It's relatively widely spoken and more or less well-enough understood by the majority of Arabs and the materials for it are also ,relatively, more.

All the best in your language learning journey!

Because of TV and Cinema, Egyptian and Levantine dialects are the most understandable even to people of the Gulf countries and not vice versa. So, if you learn one of those two, people will be able to understand you but there is no guarantee that you will be able to fully understand their Gulf dialect. However, most Arabs working and living in Dubai or Jeddah for example, are from an Egyptian or Levantine background, and they have no communication problems. They use their native dialects, and English too, and as time goes by they learn basic words and phrases of the local dialect that may be needed sometimes.