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as salaam 3laykum,
When Arabic speaking people from various countries talk to each other do you use fusha or dialect?

Wa 3alykum assalaam,

They really use their dialects, however many fus7a words are used when two people from different dialects talk to each other. For instance when I speak to Moroccan friends we tend to mix a lot of fus7a words to our conversations.

Wa alaikum salam,

From my personal experiences, I have occasionally met people from different parts of the Arab world that spoke in Fus7a. However, like Ehab has mentioned, most of the time Arabic speaking people from the various countries would use their own individual dialects with each other. Nowadays, the dialects are widely understood by everyone.

Let's make it clear, that often exactly the same words are used between the dialects, but it is the pronunciation that differs. I think there is a wide misconception about the Arabic dialects being completely different languages. Sort of like Cantonese is to Mandarin Chinese. This is not the case with the Arabic dialects.

Finally, Fus7a is always handy and is often used if the other party's dialect seems too difficult. For example, on my trips to Morocco I have often found their dialect difficult to grasp so we usually end up talking in Fus7a. Fus7a is really an advantage, as it is what everyone learns at school in all the countries i.e. they don't learn colloquial in their school books etc. So it's very useful being able to resort to it and knowing that it is the common language between all the Arabic speakers.

While We're on the subject of Dialects, here are A couple great free shows to help reinforce what we have learned from the Levantine and general dialect lessons.

http://www.shankaboot.com(Lebanese with subtitles)

http://www.beirutiloveu.com/(Lebanese with subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/user/bathbayakha (Jordanian, no subtitles)

Shukran mrsleepy for the links. I really don´t know much about the first two links, but the last one (bathbayakha) is my favourite. These guys are so talented. I think I watched all their episodes to be honest