I wrote a long time ago about my geeky habit of translating the lyrics of songs I like in order to help me with the language.

Does anyone have ANY IDEA how hard it is to translate something from colloquial Arabic?!?  The dictionary is, of course, NO help at all.  Persian, I can manage, as we did learn some “Tehrani,” and anyways it’s not as far off the Modern Standard as Arabic, even Jordanian Arabic, is.  Plus, you don’t have to figure out the original root letters in Persian.  You just open up the dictionary (it’s in alphabetical order), and you might find something similar to what you’ve got on the page.  Here, I’m mentally translating from Ammiya (Shami and Egyptian) to FusHa, and then to English.

Anyways, does anyone know of any resources on colloquial Arabic online?  I know a bit, but I’m not familiar with all of the changes that go on.  I do have the Arabic texts of the songs, so I can tell whether something should actually be a glottal stop or if it’s supposed to be a “qaf” and all that.