Customer Reviews

501 Arabic Verbs: Fully Conjugated in All Forms

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Used together with Hans Wehr's indispensable dictionary, this book is very useful for the intermediate learner of Arabic. However, the lack of English indexing is extremely frustrating. In short, it's definitely worth having until the next edition comes out - hopefully with a much-improved index.

PROS:

1. Each of the 501 verbs is conjugated neatly in its 65 different forms according to:

- person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd)

- number (singular, dual, plural)

- gender (feminine and masculine)

- voice (active and passive)

- mood (perfect (maadhi), imperfect (marfoo'a), subjunctive (mansoob), jussive (majroor), imperative (amr))

- active participle (sighat al-fa'il), passive participle (sighat al-maf'ool), and verbal noun (masdar)

These are all the forms that Arabic professors expect you (as an intermediate or advanced student) to know off the top of your head, but that few of us can actually recite perfectly - especially for weak verbs, hollow verbs, etc. So it's great having it all in once place as a reference. Even for the beginner, seeing all of this laid out for each verb in one place will give you a good visual schema for how Arabic verbs work.

2. Each verb comes with three or four example sentences using different forms of the verb in context. Very helpful if you're trying to learn new verbs.

3. Each verb comes with its verb pattern (wazn, I to X) and root (jadhr). The book is alphabetized by jadhr, just like Hans Wehr. The verbs are also indexed at the back of the book alphabetically in Arabic as well (i.e. by spelling of the pattern of the verb listed, not just by root).

4. Unlike some other reviewers, I don't find the type to be too small. It's fine. A lot of Arabic texts are written in smaller print than this anyway.

CONS:

1. Although each verb comes with the English meaning, there is no way to look up a verb by its English meaning without flipping through the entire book. This quickly becomes really annoying. It would have taken the publisher a couple of hours and added only a few pages to the end of the book to include an index of the 501 verbs by English definition. This is by far the biggest problem with the book. Without this problem, this would be a five-star book. The way it is, it's about 3 1/2 stars.

2. Although the verbs are indexed at the back of the book and numbered 1-501, page numbers aren't listed to lead you to the verb. Even worse, although the index tells you what verb #70 (out of 501) is, there's no #70 written next to the verb in the body of the book! So the index numbering is completely useless. A big oversight.

3. To make this book even better, it would help to have (a) the plural of the verbal noun (masdar) listed (since these are often irregular) and (b) the prepositions that are used with each verb. I find that I have to look to the example sentences to sort out which preposition comes after each verb, and sometimes that doesn't even clear up the question.

4. There are a few typos to watch out for - I've noticed a couple of sukkuns that should actually be hamzas. But this is a very minor gripe - it's almost 100% correct as far as I can tell.

This book does not contain an index of the verbs in English. If you're new to Arabic or don't already know the Arabic verb you wish to use, you're out of luck. You'll have to sift through hundreds of pages of verbs in the hopes of finding the one you want. It's such a shame that this book has so much to offer but is missing the one thing that would truly make it a valuable, user-friendly tool.

I have a copy of the previous '201 verbs' and was sufficiently impressed. When I heard there was an opportunity to get the same book now with 501 verbs and examples I jumped at the chance (I bought it a day after it was available at Amazon).

I have just received my copy (so my feedback maybe a little premature as I haven't given the new edition a chance to grow on me). However, the layout of the new edition is poor. The conjugation of the verbs rather than placed on one page is allowed to spread/spill over to the next page. This detracts from the users ability to see the "whole" picture for that verb. I understand that with the addition of the examples more space is needed, but alas this is a painful compromise.

I saved the best for last. The index of this book is BAD. I mean really BAD. The previous edition, although disliked by others, was after a while self explanatory and logical. In the older edition you could find verbs based on their type/form which, for most, is more useful than an alphabetical listing which limits the users ability to find a verb which is of the same form he is trying to look up (I mean you will hardly be looking up the same verb that exists in the book!).

I will try and contact the publisher and see if they will produce and make freely available an index based on the previous form.

A great book that has had its potential straight-jacketed.

I was excited to see this reference, having purchased several other 501's for other languages. Sadly, this falls far, far short. The poor indexing has been addressed in oterh reviews. The print is very small, leaving the reader to guess or get a magnifying glass to make out the tiny details of the words. Secondly, was there a particular reason to omit the prefixes and suffixes? If they are listed in the book I couldn't find them. Why would it hurt to add the prefixes to the verb forms? This can be an important and useful reference, but it is greatly inferior to the other 501 verbs for other languages. It is hardly useful at all.

The introduction is a clear explanation of Arabic verbs written for non-experts. In the paradigms, the 14 personal forms of each aspect ("tense") and voice are clearly laid out. The third masculine singular perfect form is at the top of each paradigm because it is always the simplest form of each verb.

The only complaint I have about the two indexes is that there is no distinctive first page for each index. Each just starts at the very top with the title in the upper margin. At first I thought that the alphabetization was messed up, but finally I noticed that at the top of the first six pages was one title, and on the last six pages there was another title. But this is, ultimately, a minor quibble. Once you notice the different titles, the organization becomes clear. An English index would be nice, but it is hardly indispensable, since students can and should consult dictionaries anyway.

Although no individual paradigm goes across pages, some people would like to see all the forms of each verb on a single page. To accomplish this with Arabic, though, you would have to use microscopic print, have much larger pages, or omit the examples. All things considered, I think the publishers have made reasonable choices. I speak as a linguist who has spent many years using numerous reference works for many languages, and also as a professional editor who is familiar with the kinds of trade-offs that have to be made when planning any publication. You have to compromise somewhere; the compromises in this book are, at least in my view, acceptable.

Additional note added 12/14/08, after a semester of using this book in a class: The number of potential stem forms of each Arabic verb root is so great that after several months of using this book, I have concluded that to get coverage comparable to a book of 501 verbs for a western European language, you would probably need 2,001 Arabic verbs. That is, if you are a beginning student of Spanish and look in 501 Spanish Verbs for verb that appears in your introductory textbook, you are virtually certain to find it. If you are a beginning student of Classical Arabic and look in 501 Arabic Verbs, you have about a 50-50 chance of finding it. I don't know whether any publisher will every decide to publish such a book, but it would be helpful. Arabic verbs are just a whole lot more complicated than Indo-European verbs.

Some other reviewers have already hit on my main faults with this book:
First, and most important, there is no English index at the back of the book. If you want too look up a word, you will need an English-Arabic-English dictionary to find the infinitive in Arabic. Why this sin was even committed is unfathomable. Presumably if you know Arabic you wouldn't be purchasing this book to begin with. If you have other verb books in the Barron's series it's very disappointing because you already know that that was the entire formula for its original success.
Secondly, all of the other books in the series use the one page, one verb concept. This particular version lets the verbs mingle on different pages. When you couple this with the fact that the layout is opposite from normal Western books it creates unnecessary confusion. Again, why did they leave their successful formula?
It is still a useful tool and I like the fact that the vowels are included, because for a beginner, Arabic words are almost completely unpronounceable without the vowels.
If you don't need the book immediately you may want to wait for a revised and presumably improved future edition otherwise it can be a useful investment in its current flawed state.

This is by far the most exhaustive compilation of the conjugation of the Arabic verb that I know. There are two indices for each word; one by the root order the other by the whole word order; both given in alphabetical order with page number.

The usual information is given for each. The verb is written in Arabic with the English translation. The root and its Form are given. Under this heading, for each verb, is the Active and Passive voice in Past and Present Tense conjugated in Subjunctive, Jussive and Imperative. The Active and Passive Participles are given along with the Verbal Noun.

The author gives an explanation of each of the ten forms in the introduction section at the beginning of the book. This too is extremely helpful. Check out this Introduction. Its full of useful information.

But what makes this compilation invaluable as a learning aid is the examples of the meaning of each word in at least two English sentences. Usually three or four examples are given.

I do agree with some of the other reviewers that an English word index would be helpful to facilitate the learning process. Some years ago I made my own English Index for '201 Arabic Verbs'. It took a couple of days and then it was done. I guess I'll do the same with '501'.

I highly recommend this book for anyone studying the language. It's an invaluable learning tool and a very handy reference.

As several other people mentioned, the indexing of this book leaves much to be desired. I knew this going in, but I still find the book very useful.
It's strange that some verbs don't have examples, and it's also strange that some common verbs (i.e., to promise) are not in the book, while others are.

I like the fact that the book reads right-to-left. I thought it was a nice touch, and it gave me a nostalgic feeling about my days in the classroom.
I actually decided to make an English definition index with page numbers. Took me about 2 hours, but now the book is even more useful to me.
Let me know how I can make it public, and I will.

In short, this is a very important book for people who are learning advanced sentence structures in classical and Modern Standard Arabic. You have to get used to the way the verb tenses are organized, but that won't take too much time. I will say, however, that you need to have an intermediate-advanced understanding of the vast amount of verb tenses and rules in Arabic. If you're a beginner, you'll have a tough time with this.

You're given an index of every listed verb in the order of its root (jazar), and with each verb you are provided all tenses (including the passives) with all case markings, along with the verbal noun (masdar), active participle (ism faa'il), and passive participle (ism maf'ool). You are even given sample sentences of said verb in differing contexts. Each root is organized by the form number in chronological order and the number of listed verbs per root is dependent on which verbs are important and relevant to the actual language. Anyone who asks for more than this is not appreciative of the enormous amount of dedication and diligence required to come up with such a reference guide.

Like I said before, this book will be difficult to use if you are a beginner. Those who are complaining about the lack of an English-Arabic index are either beginners or lazy. Those who need to come up with translations from English to Arabic-- for the sake of understanding how to phrase their own expressions-- are still at a level where much of the Arabic vocabulary has not been retained. In order to solve this problem, you must study the language effectively and rely on other books and resources to build your vocab. There are plenty of dictionaries and online resources that will translate an English word into Arabic-- this book is not one of them.

For many years Arabic learners had to make do with '201 Arabic Verbs', which was this book's predecessor in the widely used Barron's series of books on verbal conjugations in different languages. Now Arabic has (belatedly) made it to the big time in the arena of foreigh language education in English, and this work will make itself very useful to its students- and not just to those in the beginning stages of Arabic study.

The Arabic verb mirrors the character of the language itself- based on very simple and logical principles which turn out to be complex and daunting in practice. There are basically two tenses and an imperative (the future, subjunctive and jussive are basically just small and entirely predictable variations of the imperfect), practically no irregular verbs to speak of, and verbs with more complicated and abstract meanings are derived from the basic forms by means of a small number of again quite predictable formulas.

So how does it get hard? The answer basically lies in the forms of some of the three-consonant roots that Arabic uses not only to build up almost all of its verbs but its entire lexicon as well. Roots which include hamza (the glottal stop), waw and ya, or which include a double root (second and third consonants are the same) follow much more complicated rules and it is easy to forget the details of them if you don't see a particular form for a while. So that's the real reason why a reference work like this is so important to have. The verbs themselves have been well-chosen, there is a preliminary section that, although brief, explains all of the essentials of how Arabic verbs work, and along with the tables of conjugations illustrative sentences for each verb are given. The verbs are indexed both by alphabetical order and by root (a system that learners should master as soon as possible because it is the system used by the best Arabic dictionaries). It would have been nice to include an English index as well, and it wouldn't have added a lot of extra space. Hopefully a future edition will correct this omission. But in the meantime this is still a very helpful reference to have handy- learners will continue to turn to it long after they have passed their beginning stages.