Benjy said:
hola guys.
i have been entertaining ideas to dig out my old arabic learners stuff for quite some time but the one thing that keeps putting me off is this:
arabic seems to have spawned so many different forms.. which one iws the best one to learn. and if i choose a particular one, how hard will it be to adapt what i learn to other countries stlye of speaking?
please bear in mind when you respond that:
1. i have no clue about what i am talking about. the only things i have learnt have been gleaned from snippets of conversation with the arabic students on campus plus bits and bobs on here.
2. one of the reasons i want to learn arabic is so that i can have a stab at reading the quoran in its original language. (don't ask why.. it's just one of those things i really want to do (and no, i am not muslim

)
First of all, thanks for your interest!
I will try to answer your questions as best as I can.
There's not a cut-and-dry answer to your question about which dialect is the "best" one to learn. It really depends on which country(ies) you plan to visit and/or which dialects are spoken by those you most interact with. Nevertheless, some generalizations can be made.
I hear that Palestinian Arabic is generally understood by most Arabs (as opposed to North African Arabic, which I have a hard time understanding). I have met several North Africans who, when speaking with me, have switched to a valiant attempt at Palestinian Arabic or an awkward oral version of standard Arabic, in order for me to understand them. I, on the other hand, spoke in Palestinian Arabic without compromising my interlocutors' degree of comprehension. Obviously, it would behoove me to learn North African Arabic (bearing in mind that that, too, is further subdivided into tens of dialects), but since I will not be heading toward that part of the world anytime in the near future, it is not as expedient a measure for me.
While Palestinian Arabic may be rather universally understood because of its "familiar" properties, Egyptian Arabic is another winner - but for a different reason. Egypt has been a leader in the Arab world in the areas of media, film, art, and culture. That said, Arabs are exposed to a wide variety of cultural media communicated in the Egyptian dialect. Therefore, even though Egyptian Arabic differs quite substantially from Palestinian Arabic, I can understand it with no problems.
I can understand Jordanian, Syrian, and Lebanese Arabic with absolutely no problems (they are the most similar to Palestinian Arabic). The Gulf dialects are somewhat more challenging, but I can understand them with minimal difficulty. Iraqi Arabic is also no problem, despite dissimilarity with Palestinian Arabic (it is supposed to be more similar to the standard). I have no idea what Sudanese Arabic is like; I have never heard it.
Finally, learning spoken Arabic will not help you much as far as the Qur'an. Not only is the Qur'an written in standard Arabic (which is different from the colloquial version), but it is written in a
classical, poetic style that even natives can have a hard time understanding. Studying modern standard Arabic would be more of a step in the right direction if your goal is reading the Qur'an in Arabic.
I hope I've answered your questions. If not, please let me know. Many thanks for a fascinating topic!