Product Description
This book aims to take users from scratch to having a solid base in Arabic within six months, and to feel comfortable with the language in as little as three months. In only half an hour a day users will move ahead naturally until they are at ease with all the basic structures needed for communication and become familiar with the basic words and grammar of Arabic. The method comprises two phases: the passive phase, in which users simply repeat what they hear and read, and the active phase, in which users begin to create sentences and imagine themselves in a variety of everyday situations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Best Self-Study
I've used a lot of language books and textbooks.This is the best I've found for self-study.

Assimilate Arabic Easily
This is a course in modern standard Arabic, the official language of all Arab-speaking countries. Standard Arabic is a contemporary language that is open to the future and deeply conscious of its past. Our method also includes an introduction to Arabic script. Arabic With Ease will bring you into contact with a rich and amazing culture.

The book contains 42 lessons on 320 pages and you may also want to get 3 CDs which contain approximately 3 hours of audio in Arabic.

The lessons are presented in the form of fun dialogues.Each lesson contains grammatical notes.Throughout the book you will find numerous humorous cartoons making learning Arabic even more fun.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Useful supplement
This is an excellent secondary text for an intermediate student of Arabic.I wouldn't try to teach myself grammar points out of this book, but it is a perfect reference guide for refreshing knowledge of the more subtle points of fusha grammar.

Grammar points are explained in English with English terms.The Arabic grammatical terms are in parenthesis following the English.Thus this text will not help you understand 'irab like the Arabs do- for that you'll have to tackle something like the al-Jurumiyya.In lieu of something that hard core, Haywood and Nahmad have created a quick and relatively painless reference guide (far more user friendly, if more modern-focused, than Wright's Grammar).

Answerbook to the exercises
This answerbook is very handy for the self-taught.It has translations for all the exercises in the text book.The exercises in English are translated into Arabic and vice versa.There are also translations for the supplement in the back of the text book. It is strictly an answer book, there is no study material in this key. ... Read more

Product Description
Modern Standard Arabic Grammar is comprehensive guide that introduces readers to the basic structure and grammar of the Arabic language. Its features include:

• Comprehensive coverage of Arabic grammar and structure in current standard use (MSA), from entry level to advanced proficiency
• Balanced treatment of the phonological, syntactic, and morphological rules of the Arabic language
• An intuitive presentation of grammar rules and structures, in order of frequency and functional use
• Straightforward explanations with minimum linguistic jargon and terminology, explaining the key issues

Packed throughout with symbols, tables, diagrams, and illustrative examples, this book is essential reading for anyone in the early years of studying the language. ... Read more

Product Description
The English/Arabic version of the second edition of the best-selling and well loved Oxford Picture Dictionary, features over 4,000 words and phrases in both languages illustrated with all new vibrant, crystal-clear artwork. The topics, based on extensive input from teachers and students, have been thoroughly updated to meet the needs of today's English language learners. The new bilingual editions have complete second language indexes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

this book is very important for study
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My fault
I bought an English-Arabic Arabic-English book,but when I read in it, I knew that it is more convenient to English people than Arabian ones.So I gave it as a gift to my English teacher.

i like it
i like it, good book for English lang education. the shipped book was new.fast and clean shipping also
thank you

great for ESL, not so much for learning Arabic
I am a volunteer ESL/ABE tutor at a local library and this book is great for explaining words that would be hard to translate without a picture. For example, my student, a native Arabic speaker, was reading a passage on the first Thanksgiving and they didn't know what green beans were. All I had to do was open this book to the appropriate page and there was a picture with green beans and the words in both English and Arabic. It covers everything from family to food to places around town and more. They also sell workbooks to go with the Oxford Picture Dictionaries that are great, too. One downfall is that there are no Arabic pronounciations so it's not good if you're trying to learn Arabic. Overall though, a great book for the price and purpose.

exellent for begining or intermediate level
I recomend this book for begining or intermediat level russian speakers. Very easy book. Pictures help to learn new words a lot! I just feel sorry I didn't buy this book earlier at my begining level. I learned manywords i need living in US. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a new edition of a hugely popular title. "Mastering Arabic" is the most accessible, carefully-paced and lively introductory Arabic course on the market using an effective tried and tested methodology which works across a wide range of learner backgrounds. A long-standing best-seller, this new edition boasts an even more attractive, modern page layout with hundreds of cartoons and exercises, contrasting with the traditional approach of its competitors. This second edition also adds new conversational sections enabling learners to get conversing from the very start, more explanation and transliteration to help the self-study learner, and a general updating throughout. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (30)

Good Intentions, Charming Illustrations, Dubious Method
How can I give such an attractive and delightfully illustrated book fewer than 4 stars, even though I have serious reservations about the method it uses to teach Arabic?Mastering Arabic can get you off to a decent start if you have a sensitive teacher guiding you through it line by line.No doubt it is superior to many other beginning Arabic books.But I think its methodology is fundamentally flawed.From the outset, the authors foist on you the difficult Arabic writing system, then insist that you use it to learn conversational Arabic.No Arab learns Arabic this way.Arabs start to learn their writing system only after they are already fluent speakers.That's the natural way.As a result, it's much easier for them to learn to read and write, and to do so correctly, than it is for a foreigner who hardly speaks a word of the language.
There's a much better approach:teach beginners to comprehend and speak Arabic with a transliteration and plenty of audio input.Then, when they have reached a solid intermediate level of conversational Arabic, they can start to read Arabic script (no harm in introducing the alphabet sooner).This would make everything much easier, faster, and better.It would cut the dropout rate.And it would encourage more people to start to learn Arabic in the first place.
Rather than accepting my word on it, why don't Arabic teachers do a comparative study of the two methods, measuring time, effort, dropout rate, and performance?Why, in fact, didn't somebody do this 50 years ago?It's the scientific approach, and the results could have a big payoff.

Excellent book
I am enjoying learning arabic with this book. I am studying arabic by myself, with little help from some arabic-speakers. I believe it has been well designed for beginners and to make the learning process easy.
The explanations and exercises (also with the CD) are useful.
I strongly recommend it.

8th grade language class
my daughter find this book very challenging and informative for her 8th grade Arabic class

effective and easy to learn from
If all self-study books where as good as this one learning languages would be a piece of cake, all that would be required is time.

With so many reviews, it's hard to add more new information of this book.
I read all the other reviews myself and was convinced to try this book. I'm glad I did, now that I have started with the book myself I can see why it has received so many positive reviews.

With the risk of repeating what most others have already written:

The book gradually teaches you the script, how to read and write it.
Gradually, it also starts teaching you words and grammar.

There is a well-balanced instruction in script, grammar, and vocabulary in each chapter. This makes learning interesting and fun.

There are many sorts of excercises in each chapter: writing, reading, comprehension, listening, crosswords, word-matching etc.
With such variation, I don't see how you can possibly get bored.

The many drawings make the presentation feel fun and not so serious, it makes the learner feel less stressed and intimidated.

The vocabulary covered is very practical, there are revision chapters, and advice on further study.

Their attention to detail is impressive too, all the lists in the book are written from right to left, just like the script itself is written.
Little things like this helps your mind to adjust to writing from right to left.

With diligence you should be able to complete this package in as little as 20 weeks.

In summary: this is a small pocket-sized book that carries alot of weight.
With user-friendly material such as this there is no excuse anymore for not learning this fascinating language and the cultures that go with it.

The prospective buyer should be aware that you really need the audio-cds, so don't buy just the paperback unless you actually have access to an Arabic speaker. This one of the few book + cd packages that I have actually bought, in my previous languages studies I've usually only bought the books. In some languages you can do that, not Arabic though.

Best for beginning Arabic
This book along with Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds, has encouraged my understanding of beginning Arabic.

Believe me, I began learning Arabic because I wanted to learn something I knew absolutely nothing about. My wife speaks Mandarin and English, so I thought I could learn a language also - and I really enjoy it.

The CD is a huge help. Buy both books, Alif Baa has two DVD's. Spend an hour a day, every day and you'll be shocked how much you learn after a month.

This may sound stupid, but after learning the Arabic alphabet, I can see how our English letters, over all, look similar to Chinese characters; tense and square with straight lines. Where as Arabic letters look more artistic; relaxed with curved shapes.

Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds ... Read more

Product Description
Raji M. Rammuny's Business Arabic, Intermediate Level is intended for intermediate learners who have completed at least two regular years of Arabic study. It contains twenty-one lessons, in addition to a general introduction that includes useful information on Arab countries. The lessons are arranged by situational topics pertinent to travel, social, and business interactions. Each lesson is supported by audio and video cassettes of about two to five minutes each. The set of dialogues employs a specific form of spoken standard Arabic that is flexible enough to be understood throughout the Arab world. Learners who successfully complete this part will be able to perform well in a variety of situations, both social and business. The cultural notes and questions for discussion in each lesson familiarize the learners with Arab social customs and prepare them to start examining one's own culture and that of the Arab world.
The volume expects students to have control of basic vocabulary and grammatical structures that are typically covered in the first two years of Arabic instruction. Grammatical notes are given for review purposes, where necessary.
... Read more

Product Description
Keeping technical terminology to a minimum, this comprehensive handbook provides a detailed yet accessible overview of Arabic wherein its phonology, morphology and syntax can be readily accessed. Accompanied by extensive examples, it will prove an invaluable practical guide for supporting students' textbooks, classroom work or self-study, and a useful resource for scholars and professionals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Amazing and Simple Reference Grammar
This book spells it all out for you and covers what you need to know and what the nerds want to know.It's easy to read and clear and i've lent it out to many of my friends who studied/study Arabic and I recommend it as an essential if you care to take your studies of Arabic past the second year. I'm soon going on to graduate studies in Arabic and still always have it handy.Once you have your grammar down, learning Arabic becomes an entirely different process and being able to use your knowledge of grammar just makes the seemingly infinite number of words and morphological variations present in Arabic not so daunting because you're able to dissect every word and you pretty much only need your Hans-Wehr. And when a dictionary is the only thing you need left when studying a language, you're pretty well off.

In love with a book
This is a nice big book, I didn't expect it to be so big like half the size of a phone book, but it just makes it that much better. Now I know a lot of people like to write "Not for beginners", "Advanced linguists", and so on, I tend to see that as rather cocky, but I will say the terminology used in the book isn't for a novice, not to say a beginner cannot pick up the book and learn a whole lot but rather it will take some getting used to. Now, like others said I will reiterate, you cannot 'learn Arabic' from this book, it's a reference guide, meaning you should be learning Arabic (i.e., Vocab, Numbers, Oral Communication, Culture) elsewhere, and using this to reinforce and answer a lot of the questions you'll probably have regarding the peculiarities of Arabic. I haven't gotten through the whole book, I'm over 100 pages in and Already learned a lot in sections I thought I know a lot about like Nouns, there's a lot of nitty gritty other books wont tell you that this one does. The book covers basically all the fundamentals of Arabic speech, from Nouns, Adverbs, Adjectives, Verbs, and a lot more, and it'll keep you busy for a long time.

The most important thing to state with this book is, don't make it your ONLY book. It's long, detailed, but will not give you fluency, it's meant to explain the everyday things in Arabic speech. The first 200 pages are going to be rough since the book is so big, that you need to hold it open or else it will shut, but when you get to the middle of the book it'll hold itself open, over 700 pages is a lot plus it's measurements are pretty big too so keep that in mind.

All in all, perfect solution for grammar, you wont need much else, as long as you're following some kind of language learning system be it at school or self teaching this will boost your knowledge of FusHa al Asr 100x.

Excellent Reference Guide
This is an excellent reference guide for the intermediate to advanced student. No need to restate what the other reviewers have already pointed out, just wanted to add my support. Great book, great index, and if you still need more information, her footnotes and list of references should cover you.

What you want in a reference
If you are taking university Arabic courses and the points of grammar are not fully explained, this is an excellent reference as there are plenty of examples. The only thing it is missing for the student is the I'raab. The inflections are missing in the examples, but made up for in the transliterations.

If you've never explored a grammar book before, Ryding does a good job of reiterating how the Arabic language works to form structure, the grammar terms will become familiar over time as you gain experience using the book. Don't be intimidated. The table of contents is clear and straightforward following all major forms that you'd be familiar with: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and then breaks them down into their respective parts.

Again, this is a reference, if you use it as such, it will a great aid.

Well.-organized Arabic study
In this book of more than 700 pages, Ryding presents the essential details of the Arabic language's complexities. The work is well-organized, systematic and thorough and the index facilitates its use.

Joyce Akesson author of The Complexity of the Irregular Verbal and Nominal Forms & the Phonological Changes in Arabic ... Read more

Product Description

It's easy to teach yourself Arabic!

Complete Arabic provides you with a clear and comprehensive approach to Arabic, so you can progress quickly from the basics to understanding, speaking, and writing Arabic with confidence.

Within each of the 25 thematic chapters, important language structures are introduced through life-like dialogues.You'll learn grammar in a gradual manner so you won't be overwhelmed by this tricky subject. Exercises accompany the texts and reinforce learning in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This program also featurescurrent cultural information boxes that reflect recent changes in society.

The accompanying audio CDs include audio exercises--performed by native speakers--that reinforce communicative skills.

Customer Reviews (1)

No surprises, still a good book
If you have the previous edition, then this will not be too much of a surprise. I do have to say, I like this one better; in the fact that its tighter, cleaner and a bit less unorganized looking. There are a couple of new features that I like about it. The packaging is better than the clear case which tended to break after a couple of times opening it; this one is a bit stronger. The binding seems WAY BETTER in this edition, as I know my complaint and many others, was that after a while the book literally falls apart with use. I don't think that will happen with this book, we'll see!

I don't know why it says 496 pages, there aren't that many in the book--this one or the previous edition. Although, they have added a few more pages than before and it has more relevant and current items to bring it a bit more up to date, like about cell phones, laptops, and the like. At the end of each unit, they have "10 things you need to know", which is little side notes of grammar to inform you. Thankfully, they have not eliminated the Arabic script and there are no vowel markings to help you sound them out--yay! Although, for the section on telling time, they eliminated it almost entirely and changed the section citing "telling time in Standard Arabic is complicated". Huh??? It's not *that* complicated once you understand it and they explained it in the previous editions beautifully but I guess, decided it was not worth it anymore for this one. I don't want to quibble; but it made me mad because it was really a valuable thing to know and a great way to push your brain cells to thinking harder. Plus after 10-20 Arabs asking you what time it is all the time,(my experience only), it is cool to see their faces when you tell them and correctly in Arabic!

I was really harsh in review about the previous edition until I went thru the book better and understood why it was the way it was but a lot of it was justified; it just seemed messy. This edition I like much, MUCH better. Even though it is sort of the same, it isn't--lol! The setup and layout is much improved! I haven't gone completely thru the CDs yet but from what I have listened to so far, the recording is still the same. The back of the book has the usual answers to the exercises and a few new things, like the little glossary of grammar terms and a grammar summary, as a bit of a refresher for those of us who have been out of school for quite awhile and need to remember what a verb or past participle is. It is not complete or cover all the grammar in the book but hits on the main grammatical points and that's enough. You will not regret buying this book if you have not done so already and if you already have the previous edition, it would be nice to have this one just to replace your old falling apart one! This is a good MSA course and you will learn a lot, especially if you have no Arabic knowledge already but remember, nothing replaces hard work and USING the language itself. You cannot attain fluency from reading a book, so don't expect that. Get out there and speak to native speakers!

I just really like this new edition and glad that Teach Yourself has finally stop neglecting its course books and updating them. This book is fresh looking, aesthetically pleasing to the eye, more durable and yet, still has the same valuable information that makes Teach Yourself books the great resource that they are. Although, for some reason, some books they updated, like German and Korean, have nice color pics and glossy pages in the first few chapters but not all the books, especially this one. That is puzzling, I can't figure out why they would do that. I know that we all complain about certain editions or courses of theirs but bottom line is, Teach Yourself is a good resource and lifeline when it comes to language learning because if it wasn't for them, we would be pretty up creek as far as finding good, inexpensive and semi-accurate material to learn languages from. My dream would be if Teach Yourself or Living Language would do more advanced courses, like an Arabic or Hindi II/III (and be more accurate at current ones)and add more neglected languages like, Tamil, Hawaiian, Berber, Zulu or Native American languages but those are dreams only!

Most companies that did language courses, no longer do them anymore or the stuff they still have left over and put out, are horrendously out of date (although, some are still arguably good)and hard to find. Barron's and Berlitz, haven't put out a language book in over 25 yrs. The "new" ones they are selling now are their same exact courses from the 80's with only a new cover; same recordings, same content, layout, pictures, etc. Amazon even sells copies of Berlitz' re-release of their 1950 editions of courses they did.(I have to admit, these are still quite good--get one!) Thankfully, there is a huge resurgence of people wanting to learn new languages--I think inspired by the large and ever growing polyglot community--and that is boosting or resurrecting a lot of language producers. That is great and will only benefit us in the long run.

**Amended**I have to amend this to add, the CD's are somewhat the same material but re-recorded and they suck. The woman who is narrating is also pretending to be a native speaker and because of her heavy British accent, as she pretends, her accent quite clearly shows thru on just about every word she utters; and she pronounces all the letters and most words, WRONG. I don't know why they would take the effort and money to mess this up. Anyway, the guy IS a native speaker, so listen when he talks but not her. As you learn more, you will pick up and alter any words you heard from her, the right way so don't worry. Also, I was reading on another TY product review that they are in fact, NOT updating some books/courses at all, really, but just putting on new covers and keeping the same old, outdated content and raising the price! So BEWARE!! If you get one of these, I would suggest and encourage you complain to them directly, as the more of us who complain, then they will really HAVE TO update them and stop this mess. With this course, luckily, I have not found that but now, annoyingly, I realize 20% of the book is keys to exercises, verb charts and grammar charts; making the book only about 340 pages and they took out a lot of vocabulary. Still, all in all, Teach Yourself is better than nothing and some other courses out there and worth the $20. ... Read more

Product Description

Learn helpful Arabic vocabulary without being intimidated by its non-Roman script!

Your desire to learn Arabic may be twarted by its script; how will you pick up the language if you can't understand its characters? Read and Speak Arabic for Beginners overcomes this obstacle by providing an accessible, entertaining program that will reinforce vocabulary as well as help you create basic structures.

Each of the eight topics develop your communication skills in key areas, and your progress will be reinforced by tests and puzzles. The accompanying 55-minute audio CDcontains all the key words and phrases for you to listen to and repeat. It also features entertaining listening activities and games for additional reinforcement.

• Two-color layout and photographs throughout to illustrate key vocabulary.
• Proven approach combines games, puzzles, flashcards, and audio to aid language.
• Clear explanations of how basic phrases are used for practical communication.
• Audio CD/MP3s for correct pronunciation provides speaking and listening practice and audio games; detachable flashcards allow language reinforcement.

Topics include:
What is your name?; Where are you from?; What is this?; Where is it?; What's it like?;How do I get there?;Who's this?; What do you do?

Customer Reviews (3)

excellent source for beginners MSA
this is an excellent book (workbook) for MSA beginners. This book makes it fun with games, flashcards and more. It comes with a CD which is excellent as well.Good pronounciation with good quality recording.A must have.

Excellent book!
I absolutely LOVE every thing that Jane Whitewick puts out. She makes learning Arabic easy and less stressful; especially the grammar! I had an "aha" moment when just thumbing thru her book BEFORE I even bought it on a Arabic grammar issue I had been trying to figure out for 18 months! I have to admit, that Jane's super strong British accent is kinda a distraction when hearing her speak and Mahmoud sounds kinda bizarre talking like a proper English gent sitting down to tea vs. the Arab he is; but after a while, you get over it. She knows how to rock a language and get you to learn it. She has done a recording for Arabic for the Michel Thomas Method and I have to say, because I found out it was her doing the lessons is why I bought it---she really knows her stuff. If you are desiring to learn Arabic with some ease and less stress, then I recommend you searching Amazon and buy all her books.

The best arabic audio book
With audio cd, this book is one of the best books for learn arabic languaje. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides system developers and researchers in natural language processing and computational linguistics with the necessary background information for working with the Arabic language. The goal is to introduce Arabic linguistic phenomena and review the state-of-the-art in Arabic processing. The book discusses Arabic script, phonology, orthography, morphology, syntax and semantics, with a final chapter on machine translation issues. The chapter sizes correspond more or less to what is linguistically distinctive about Arabic, with morphology getting the lion's share, followed by Arabic script. No previous knowledge of Arabic is needed. This book is designed for computer scientists and linguists alike. The focus of the book is on Modern Standard Arabic; however, notes on practical issues related to Arabic dialects and languages written in the Arabic script are presented in different chapters.Table of Contents: What is "Arabic"? / Arabic Script / Arabic Phonology and Orthography / Arabic Morphology / Computational Morphology Tasks / Arabic Syntax / A Note on Arabic Semantics / A Note on Arabic and Machine Translation ... Read more

Product Description
This comprehensive work presents a compelling and much needed synthesis of linguistic theories, considering both the historical development of Arabic, and its modern structure and usage. Versteegh describes Arabic's three main dialects: Arabic proper, typified by the archaic dialects of the Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula; Eastern dialects spoken in Iraq, Syria, and Egypt; and Latinized dialects spoken in Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A scientific approach!!
This is a wonderful scientific read for all those who wish to delve deeply in the background of the Arabic language. It takes up the origins and similarities between the Semitic languages and goes into detail about the Maghrebi, Egyptian, Levantine, and Yemenese dialects. It even takes up the linguistic diffusion of Arabic into other languages (i.e. Spanish, Turkish, Persian, Hindi, Indonesian languages).
A wonderful book to possess!

In-depth linguistic analysis
This was an excellent, well researched book. It was full of history, which added context to the discussion of the dialects, and despite being a speaker, I found it full of new information. Personally, I enjoyed most the parts on the mass bedouin migrations to Egypt and the Maghreb, the story of the Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym, and the great amount of information on Bedouin migrations, which help explain how certain characteristics spread.
A basic knowledge of Arabic is definitely required, or it will be a tedious book to complete, and I would also say that a knowledge of linguistics would also be helpful, as the book is filled with linguistic terminology such as dipthongs, verbo-nominal compounds, infinitives, suffixes, subjunctives, etc. It would have been useful to have a glossary at the end.
The only drawback of the book is that all of the Arabic is transliterated into English. I would have found the book much easier if the words had been left in Arabic. For the next edition, I would recommend keeping the words in Arabic, and adding footnotes to the bottom of the page with the English transliterations for those who need them.
All in all, an excellent non-Arab study into the language.

A-

Detailed Analysis of the evolution of Arabic Language
This is a very detailed and scientific analysis of the evolution of Arabic Language, although it may not be meant for the lay man. Kees Vertsteegh has painstakingly detailed-out the linguistic history of Arabic Language starting from its birth in the History all the way to the current state of the language in different parts of the Arabic world.
One point to note though: the book uses a lot of phonetic symbols but does not provide a legend for the same.
All in all, a marvelous treatise and a readable book for those interested in 'The Arabic Language'.

History of the Development of Arabic
I sought this book to understand how the division arose between spoken Arabic with all its various dialects and standard written Arabic which is known as Fusha. In that regard the book satisfied my interest and gave me an idea of the key differences between the various dialects, but I was left with wanting to know more about how the linguistic division arose. Additionally, the book was too technical in some parts for the layman to comprehend. An elementary grasp of Arabic would suffice. And I would have found it easier if the Arabic quoted in the book was not transliterated in English but left with the Arabic script. All in all, it was a useful book and an eye opener into the complexities of Arabic.

History and background of Arabic and Dialects, not much more
I just finished reading Versteegh's book and I thought it was a good read for those interested in knowing the background of the Arabic language. There's information regarding the relationship between Arabic and Aramaic, as well as Hebrew and Arabic. A student of Arabic, like myself, would find this book to be a review of the origins and similarities between the semetic languages.

The most interesting chapters are those of the Arabic dialects. The book goes into detail about the Maghrebi, Egyptian, Levantine, and Yemenese dialects. It covers their similiarities, differences, and multiple hypotheses on why FusHa has died out before and during the colonial period in the M.E. and why it is now making a comeback due to fundamentalism.

Those interested in the linguistical diffusion of Arabic into other languages (i.e. Spanish, Turkish, Persian, Hindi, Indonesian languages) will find a brief chapter summarizing all of this info.

I finished the book in 2 days, and found myself wanting more. Perhaps it's better to get this book from a university or public library rather than spend $30.00+. Hope this helps. ... Read more

Product Description
This dictionary provides Syrian terms for the language needed in everyday life.The Syrian used is that of educated Muslims in Damascus, which would be understood not only elsewhere in Syria but also in the broader linguistic area of "Syrian Arabic," which encompasses present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Arab-speaking population of Israel. The book includes examples, idioms, and common phrases using the word in question.The Arabic terms are presented in transcription. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

useful, but limted
especially useful are the examples given with each entry. it can be seen that an effort has been made to give all the possibilities for each entry. the disadvantage of this dictionary is that many entries are missing. in the short time i've been using it, i could not find at least three english words and not esoteric ones, but words i would expect to find, for instance "wander". all considered, recommended for students of syrian-palestinian spoken arabic at beginner or intermediate level.

Couldn't even read the arabic script!
I was excited about receiving this book, but once it arrived, I opened it up and couldn't even make out the Arabic script because of the (very) poor quality of the print! The English text was even fuzzy. Fortunately the return process went smoothly and I received my money back!

disappointment
This book is not even witten in Arabic.To use it I will have to learn a whole new transliteration system. It is useless for someone transitioning from classical Arabic to spoken arabic.

SIMPLY AWESOME
It's a shame that the Arabic-English part was never completed!! I love this dictionary, it has almost everything it. I actually went through most of it with a Syrian friend, and he agreed that everything in there appears as it is spoken in Syria today. It lacks slang terms, but then again one can learn the slang of Syrian Arabic by visiting Syria, and it's a great country to visit, very beautiful!

WOW!
I refer to this book once in a while.Its really neat that I can just think of a word, look it up and voila!....there it is in perfect syrian colloquial arabic.The entries also have example sentences to give you an idea of the context and grammatical syntax with which this word is used.I have noticed however that some very common arabic expressions/words that I hear spoken by Syrians and Lebanese are not included as synonyms for the meanings.Im not sure if this is because this book was compiled in the 1960s and the colloquial slang could be slightly different now in 2005....this sort of thing is very rare, though.I wonder how on earth they compiled such a detailed exhaustive list.This is a lifetime keepsake, if you are as crazy about learning levantine arabic as I am! ... Read more

Product Description
Now in a playful board book format, Milet's popular picture dictionary, in English and 12 bilingual editions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Milet Mini Picture Dictionary, English-Arabic
Wow, thanks for finding this book. I was quite impressed that it was shipped from the UK. The book is ideal. It was in mint shape and the service was very good. I will find great use for it. Thank you again.

Real nice quality and content
The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is the fact that it is not in classical arabic (which would make it easier for anyone speaking any arabic dialect), it is rather in a dialect itself. There are also a few words that were misused (cup in English translates to koob mostly & never Ka's which means wine glass).

But I like it. Eventhough the age indicated is a bit old for my 10 months old daughter she is somewhat interested in it. I think that compared to the other books in the market this book has a higher quality and content. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Very useful tool!
This book is a very useful tool which will help the student learn how to read the Arabic newspapers. The 100 articles that are presented are from the late 1980's and are translated into English. There are also questions and answers to each one of them together with exercises. The student will learn how sentences are usually arranged.


Joyce Akesson, author of The Complexity Of The Irregular Verbal And Nominal Forms & The Phonological Changes In Arabic and The Essentials of the Class of the Strong Verb in Arabic

1001 nights
excellent resource for solving the mystery of news in arabic script apperaring in a newspaper. beginning with short arabic newspaper excerpts you progress into full page newspaper tezts. Every arabic texts has its own translation.No transliteration whatsoever. for intermediate and advanced readers. one that you can not do without.

You must get this book...
...if you want to be able to read the Arabic news media.The content here is definitely no-frills -- 100 articles from the late 1980's, arranged in order of length, with plain-English translations.A bit of vocabulary is given, but not much.There are questions about each article and answers in the back, and a few exercises.There is no interpretation or explanation of any of the articles (although the trivia questions are a nice touch!)

Nevertheless, the book is incredibly helpful -- here's how I used it: I have been studying Arabic on my own for about 2 years, and before this book I would xerox articles from al-Ahram but even if I looked up all the vocabulary (even that can be tricky), I couldn't piece together the meaning of the sentences.For the first 10 articles I read in this book, I felt the same way.Then I started seeing some patterns -- starting with being able to recognise the use of titles after a name, then figuring out how sentences broke down into smaller units, and so on.Right now I'm on article 60, and I can understand alot of it without looking at the translation.Last week I went back to the current newspaper and read through 2 articles -- the style and vocabulary has not changed much, and I was able to get through the current articles just as easily.

By the way, you should also get The Top 1,000 Words for Understanding Media Arabic,by Elisabeth Kendall, to go with this book.The list is extremely useful.

Arabic Language Learning materials that you can't do without
This is an invaluable tool that is a must have for any student of Arabic as a foreign language.The material is comprehensive and graduated form the easiest to the hardest.Passages include questions on content writtenin Arabic and the appendex is a translation with the answers to thequestions.Perhaps this description doesn't do the book justice.Thetranslations are in real life English not halting translation scribble andthe questions are very realevant to the material and truley capture themost important elements of the passages.As if that were not a strongenough reccomendation, there are also trivial persuit type questions thatenhance one's knowledge of the region and history.Bottom line, if youare an English speaking student of Arabic, you have to use this book!!! ... Read more

Product Description

This short, accessible vocabulary of business Arabic provides learners with strictly relevant key terms for translating both from and into Arabic.

Suitable for students, business people, and those working in the Middle East who have come to Arabic as non-specialists after leaving college, Business Arabic: An Essential Vocabulary will -- in contrast with traditional Arabic dictionaries -- encourage the user to deal with business terms and coinages used to express modern concepts.

The book provides:

• A core vocabulary of over 1300 business Arabic terms in an A-Z format, allowing for easy reference

• Key vocabulary components essential to comprehend, translate, write and speak modern business Arabic

• An index of all English terms translated to allow for English-Arabic searches

Customer Reviews (29)

I never recieved my book!
Um I would never recommend this seller, i never recieved my book. I ordered it twoweeks before school, and then it became 1 month later and still no book! I told them about it after two weeks into it, and they say wait another 3 days, it never came!!!!

great for learning
used this in class, and liked it in comparison to other language books i have used.a lot depends on the teacher too!

Ahlen was Sahlan
book was delivered as described but missing the all important CD (which was disclosed was missing). Good seller all around.

the best available college-level text
This is far and away the most grammatically oriented of the current generation of Arabic language textbooks, which could be enough reason in itself for some people not to like it.It isn't as thorough or precise as the Big Orange Book (aka Elementary Modern Standard Arabic) but the vocabulary it introduces is more relevant and useful for everyday life and the explanations of how the language works are not difficult to understand and build upon each other in a very logical way. The lessons themselves, built around the theme of Arab students studying in the US (and vice-versa) aren't enthralling, but there is a lot of vocabulary that the learner could put to use right away. This book is certainly the best bet for making progress in Arabic in a reasonable amount of time and it beats its better-known rival (the Maha and Khalid chronicles) in every possible way.

Possibly the worst language textbook ever written.
This is possibly the worst language textbook ever written.Arabic is a semetic language based on three letter roots....it does not even mention this until around chapter 20.The book is extremely dense, confusing, poorly laid out, filled with typos, and doesn't correlate well with the CD.The grammar lessons in the book are so confusing that you need a doctorate in English to understand them.Be prepared for lots of talk about "preposed predicates", "accusative case", "nominal sentences", and much, much more.Let's not even get into the "pronunciation tips" it gives you.You seriously need a biology textbook to understand what the book means when it tells you to roll your tongue off the aveolar ridge, or to bring in your epiglottis, or touch the tip of your tongue to the velum. I'm in an Arabic class at University of Alabama and every single student in the class HATES the book and wants a different one.I also teach Hebrew at the university and I know for a fact that all of my Hebrew students can speak about 10 times as much Hebrew as I can speak Arabic.Horrible book, don't buy it.Get Rosetta Stone instead. ... Read more

Product Description
"A Basic Course in Moroccan Arabic" was first introduced to Arabic language students in the 1960s. This volume also includes an audio CD of MP3 files that further aid the lessons presented. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Trying to become fluent
So far, this seems like a great book.The lessons I've read so far are very clear in explaining the Moroccan language.The only negative thing I would have to say is that some of the MP3 files sound muffled, but if you're reading along in the book, you can still understand.I would recommend this book to others.

a limited book with really lousy audio
The Georgetown series on spoken Arabic varies widely in quality. The Iraqi Arabic course is excellent and so is the Syrian Arabic course,which is available online.By comparison, this book does not deliver much.When they say "Basic", they're not kidding: The vocabulary is very
limited, although useful and with drilling (1960's style repetition) one certainly gets it down. The Lonely Planet Moroccan Arabic book is a good place to go to build on the seven hundred or so words this book offers, and there is also a Moroccan grammar in this same series that gives more grammatical details than the bare essentials offered in this volume. So for an introductory course this isn't a bad place to start.

So why only two stars? Because the audio is very poor, and in this day and age it is hard to see much excuse for that. What is actually on these MP3s is the tapes from nineteen sixty whatever, and seemingly without any attempt to enhance them (or eliminating extraneous sounds),
much less having the book re-recorded by a contemporary native speaker. When I ordered the audio from Georgetown (having already obtained the book) I actually spoke with a woman who told me that her husband was Moroccan. In other words, Georgetown wouldn't have had to look very far if they decided that a badly-needed do-over of their audio was in order.
This is 2009, guys. Get your act together.

Drills drills and more drills
The sound quality for the mp3s are not great, actually they are downright crappy - sounds like they were recorded in the author's kitchen. But the drills are helpful if you have the patience and attention span for repetition.Its pretty much an old school way of learning the language, repeating every word you hear about 5 times and moving on to the next word. Considering there are hardly any other moroccan arabic books out there, think it is a good book to get the language into your system. If you can get through the 700+ words repeated 5 times each at the beginning of the book, then you can move on to the exercises. Looks like it builds on previous knowledge. Also, there is no arabic script in the text so if you started learning the sounds that way, you'll have to get used to having everything transiterated in this book's style.A bit daunting but manageable in short sessions as all the drills are clearly marked in the book and categorized in the mp3 library.

Good course for spoken Moroccan Arabic
If you are out to develop spoken proficiency in the Moroccan dialect of Arabic, I don't think there is any better product out there.I have been working with this book for about 2 months, and feel like I am already gaining a good grasp of the basics of the language.The exercises are generally easy to follow and facilitate learning.

The downside is that the sound quality of the recordings is quite poor (though understandable), and there are some inconsistencies between the recordings and the written exercises that support them.

Also, keep in mind that the book is entirely in transliteration, and as such does not help with learning to read Arabic at all.

Very helpful
If you are interested in learning Moroccan Arabic this is a very helpful book. The book lays down the basics of the language and is a good starting point in how to pronounce letters and words. ... Read more

Product Description
Designed to be a child's very first foreign language dictionary (5-10 years). 500 entries, each accompanied by a large illustration. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Geared more toward ARABIC to English than vice versa
A nice enough book with heavy weight paper.

Not really a dictionary from the English perspective.It is set up with 2-10 pages for each letter of the alphabet, A-Z.Airplane, Alphabet, Antelope, Antlers, Aligator are all on the A page.However, those words don't all start with Alif (A) in Arabic.So it seems this book would be better for an Arabic speaking child learning english than vice versa.Also, the index in the back is organized by arabic letters, so all the words in the book starting with Alif (A) are listed together in the index under Alif.so if you are looking for the word Alligator, and you don't know that it starts with Q, you wouldn't be able to find it in the index. It is not the best setup for English to Arabic usage.

I would have preferred to see the book set up by subject matter (parts of the body, days of the week, colors, types of vehicles, whatever)

The translations are accurate according to my husband, not an Egyptian dialect but standard Arabic. (I asked him to check it out for me after reading a review for another book that was supposed to be Arabic but the reviewer said it was really Farsi!!)

Had a hint of a musty odor.

I will try to find another picture dictionary. ... Read more