Frustrated with lack of Iraqi arabic resources

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Hey folks,

I was wondering if anyone here has had success brute forcing a language using LingQ. By brute forcing, I mean jumping straight from beginner materials into the deep ocean of native-level content, without much in-between.

I’ve been committed to learning Iraqi Arabic for about six months now. My main goal is to connect with my partner’s family when I (hopefully) meet them next year. So far, I’ve made quite a bit of progress:

Practicing with my partner

Working through the old but extensive A Basic Course in Iraqi Arabic from the 60s (very dry and old school, but thorough)

Slogging through a massive Anki deck I found online (with difficulty and lots of mnemonics)

Using Mango Languages as a supplementary course

The biggest frustration I’m facing is the lack of material to bridge the gap between beginner content and native-level content. I’ve been importing transcripts from the DLI continuation course into LingQ and also pulling in YouTube videos from 1001TV (highly recommend—some videos actually have Iraqi Arabic subtitles, which is incredibly rare).

I’m slowly starting to get a feel for the language, but there are still so many unknown words. I can’t tell if I’m just being impatient, or if this is an inefficient approach.

I’ve also been tempted to switch to Egyptian Arabic because the resources are so much more plentiful. For example, there’s a great Glossika course (which I’ve successfully used for Italian and Russian). I even find Egyptian pronunciation way
easier. Part of me wonders if I could build proficiency in Egyptian and then gradually substitute in Iraqi-specific words when needed (I know—this is an unusual strategy).

Ultimately, my goal is to communicate effortlessly with my partner’s family, but I also have a genuine passion for Arabic language, culture, and history.

I’ve learned Italian and Russian before, and the process felt much more straightforward because those languages are so standardized. (Funnily enough, I ran into the same problem when I tried to learn Neapolitan—resources were basically nonexistent apart from one book from the 80s.)

Has anyone else here had success learning a language with very limited resources? Or used LingQ to brute force comprehension? I’d love to hear about your experiences or any advice you might have. Honestly, I could use a bit of motivation.

Thanks in advance!

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Yeah, I tried this with Hebrew.
For me, I need a lot of beginner level videos on YouTube so I can listen to it for hours a day.
The problem is, that doesn’t exist in Hebrew. I think it’s Piece of Hebrew that has some great beginner level stuff and a few others, Hebrew Pod 101, but realistically it was going to be listening to 5 videos non-stop and that was going to drive me nuts. There’s tons of intermediate to advanced for Hebrew, but getting there? Ouch.
Some I was only taking a tour of the language and not full on dedicated - I wanted to get a sense of how it was going to go: I stopped after a month and some.
If I were to do it again I would stick to mini-stories in LingQ, learn them backwards and forwards. There’s also the Greetings stories by LingQ and I would hammer on those until I could memorize them. Not saying it would be fun but doable.
Also, I would generate stories with ChatGPT, just tell is CEFR level A1 or whatever level you are aiming for. Also watch Steve’s video on Googles NotebookLM - I use that to output your Iraqi Arabic (hopefully it can!) and generate CEFR level appropriate stuff. People do that all that time and upload some of that to YouTube, no reason you can’t do it as well.
Anyways, just my two cents worth of suggestions, and good luck!
Arabic is on my target list - but it’s years off right now, hopefully things are better then.

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