Customer Reviews

Arabic (Egyptian), Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Egyptian Arabic with Pimsleur Language Programs

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First, a brief description of this reviewer. I took two semesters of elementary Arabic at a university one year ago. I was fortunate to have very good professors, who went beyond the textbook to teach a lot of stuff that wouldn't be covered until later (for example, verb conjugations and negation). However, all this was in modern standard Arabic. This dialect is used in the Quran and in writing, but generally not in speaking. I was a little disillusioned of the lack of conversational Arabic in the university courses available to me. A reviewer of a modern standard textbook wrote on Amazon that others said he sounded like the Quran or an ancient author. While I do not know whether it is that extreme, I think it is important to learn a conversation dialect for speaking with native speakers.

I was serious about learning conversational Arabic, and the Pimsleur comprehensive courses seem to have a good reputation and methodology, so I bought the Egyptian Arabic I comprehensive course. I chose Egyptian because Egypt is the most populous Arabic country, and the Egyptian dialect (each country or region has a dialect with its own twist on vocabulary) is widely understood in the Arab world due to the prevalence of Egyptian films.

It certainly made it easier that I had already studied Arabic for two semesters. I was used to the sounds and some of the basic vocabulary. Note however that much of the vocabulary is different from modern standard. While "street" is the same, for instance, "car" and "this" are different. So a person who has studied modern standard will have an easier time with the phonetics than the complete beginner, but one is not immune from learning new vocabulary--and lots of it.

I was afraid that a self-guided, completely audio course would use repetition as its main weapon, and repetition doesn't work great with me as my brain just fills up to the brim quickly, leaving me unable to recall anything quickly. However, Pimsleur uses a totally different methodology. Instead of a linear process, ("learn these words and their conjugations"), Pimsleur takes a more random approach. You might learn "you understand" for a lady in lesson 1 and "you understand" for a man in lesson 3. For each new word or phrase, especially in the first few lessons, each syllable is sounded out in reverse order. The Pimsleur program uses anticipation rather than repetition throughout the course. You are prompted in English to say something in Arabic, then there is a pause to allow you to answer out loud. Then the Arabic speakers say it, and your brain can compare the two, correcting if necessary. At the beginning of each lesson there is a conversation to listen to, I think to soften up your ears for Arabic. It also serves as a review to recall previous lessons' vocabulary. For the bulk of the lesson, the prompt-pause-answer format is used. At the end of some lessons, one participates in a mock conversation.

Each lesson has both review of previous material and new material in good measure. The Pimsleur program does not teach grammar rules at all. But it does teach words, phrases, and then asks you to string them together to make whole, useful sentences. From these you infer the grammar rules. Instead of learning rules by wrote, the program lets you build a gradual intuitive understanding of how the puzzle pieces of nouns, verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and phrases fit together in grammatically correct sentences. The Pimsleur program is based on 15 lesson CD's, each with two 30-minute lessons. There is an additional CD which, along with a small booklet, introduces you to Arabic writing.

I have gone through the 30 lessons, and am now in the process of going through them again. The result is that I have a basic knowledge of Egyptian Arabic. I find that I can really impress my new Arabic instructor. Just last class she asked whether I had been to Egypt, which I have not.

I only can think of three negative things to say about this program. First, there should be a level II course like Pimsleur has with other languages. Second, due to the random structure of the course, you don't learn all the verb conjugations. There is virtually no third-person verb conjugations introduced, for instance, you learn "I go", "you go", but not "she goes". This is why a level II course is so needed. Third, some people may be turned off by the price. Clearly the Pimsleur comprehensive programs are for serious learners. But really one gets what one pays for. I would encourage those who are interested in this product to shop around on price comparison sites or on popular auction sites (wink, wink), as shopping around will yield significant savings.

In conclusion, this was money well-spent.

In response to the negative reviews I've read under various Pimsleur language courses, I wanted to clarify an important point for the prospective buyer. First, it is true that you will acquire a very limited vocabulary even after completing Level III of any Pimsleur language course. The important thing to keep in mind is that you are learning the core vocabulary of the language-the most commonly used words. But vocabulary is not the most important part of acquiring fluency in a new language. The most important part is gaining an innate sense of grammar and syntax. In other words, you must be able to string the vocabulary words together into meaningful phrases. You must be able to think in your new language. That ability is what Pimsleur will give you.

Talk to any student who has completed two college semesters of a foreign language, and he or she can spew off lists and lists of vocabulary. But the student does not have the ability to carry on even a simple conversation. Why not? Well, all of that vocabulary is meaningless without the innate sense of structure that Pimsleur provides.

My own experience: I completed Pimsleur Egyptian Arabic I back in early June of this year. After completing the course, I could recite a few useful phrases, but I felt that I lacked any real grasp of the language. Therefore, in late June of this year, I signed up for an Adult Education course in Conversational Egyptian Arabic at the local University. My teacher was soon amazed by my progress. By the end of that 6 week course, I was carrying on real conversations with the instructor while the rest of the class gaped in envy and frustration. Pimsleur had taught me how the language works, and armed with a few new vocabulary words, I was able to assimilate the new information into my innate sense of the syntax and structure of the language. In other words, Pimleur had taught me how to think in Arabic. Therefore, I was immediately able to use the new words with comfort and ease.

Yes, Pimsleur is expensive. But if you want to truly learn to think in your new language, it's the only way to go. The only better way to learn Egyptian Arabic would be to spend several months in Egypt. The cost of that makes the Pimsleur courses seem much more reasonable by comparison.

I've just started Pimsleur Japanese I, and plan to complete the full 90 lesson comprehensive program. I know it will be worth every penny!

This course benefits from the strengths and suffers from the weaknesses of all the Pimsleur courses I have studied (French and Russian). The strengths are the emphasis on spoken Egyptian Arabic, on the help in acquiring a good pronounciation, and in the repetition of some elementary structures so that the student feels reasonably comfortable. The weaknesses are the paucity of vocabulary and the lack of an anchor to any grammatical understanding, particularly of the verbs.

As with the other Pimsleur courses, one might say that this introductory set, by itself, can only be given a lukewarm recommendation. However, like the others, the recommendation becomes warmer once Levels II and III become available. For example, the complete French course can be recommended, but not simply Part I. I hope that Levels II and III for Egyptian Arabic will be developed. If they are, then it may make sense (even if it is expensive) to purchase the whole lot. To settle only for Part I is not entirely satisfactory.

My husband is Egyptian and I wanted to learn Egyptian Arabic before I went to Egypt (last summer) to visit his family. I must say- the first 8 cds that I purchased as a test helped me tremendously. I was able to communicate with his family better than had I not listened to any! I was able to understand more or less what they were telling me. I was so pleased with my purchase that I went and bought the entire series. After continuing with the series, I found that the phrases they were telling me in Egypt were in the cds and was so happy to recognize them.

I highly recommend these cds to anyone wishing to learn Egyptian Arabic. I hope they will continue with the series as the first one leaves you hungry for more.

On my trip to Egypt this March, several people asked me where I studied Arabic, and were amazed (and thought maybe they misunderstood) that I had learned my Arabic from CD's. It was very gratifying. I picked these CD's up on an online auction. I've used Pimsleur for Swedish and Egyptian Arabic, and have had great success with both. They are the only language tapes where on arrival in the country, people could understand what I was saying, which made for a more enjoyable vacation. I also speak German and a smattering of other languages. You really must set time aside to do these tapes, as they are intensive, and at the end of the lesson you feel like your brain hurts. But it works - when stressed and lost and hungry and tired, you will remember how to say "where is" whatever. Then you watch the hands pointing, you walk in that direction a bit, and you ask again. The key is that they understand you, and you may pick out a few words. I was hanging out at one point with an Egyptian student and two Japanese students, and we four girls were speaking a mixture of Arabic, Japanese, and English. It was great! Sure, I could have had a decent time in Egypt with just English, but it was unbelievably wonderful to be able to communicate a bit with regular folks.

Since my first visit to Egypt six years ago I have tried to learn Egyption Arabic. I have tried different courses, CDs and cassettes. But I must say that this one is by far the best.
The way the course is buildt up really makes you remember the words. And being a norwegian native, arabic is quite hard to learn. I only wish I could find a next level course.

I purchased this to use in the car on the way to work. Since I carpool with my wife, I couldn't listen every day so it was around 2-3 days per week. I replayed the CDs like they suggested until I had at least 80% of the covered material down. Since I could only listen for short periods of time, it took me about 4 months to complete all 30 lessons. The conversational style was great and I hoped the pronunciation was correct, but I had no idea if anyone would really understand me.

Well, I just returned from my second mission to Egypt and I am happy to say the program worked flawlessly. The friends I had met on my first trip were shocked to hear I could speak the language. One of my friends commented "you speak Arabic the same way we do". Since I was working in the slums on the outskirts of Cairo, I was speaking with the average Joe on the street. The only problems I had were a few words (maybe 3 or 4) they don't use in the outskirts of town. Our Egyptian leader said most of the locals use slang terms for those words and the ones I had learned were correct in the city.

I need to work on building my vocabulary, but this program is a great start if you want to learn to speak the language and sound like a native.

Even though the Pimsleur method is FABulous, before investing huge dollars in the CDs, check with your local public library. They might be available for borrowing.

I actually purchased Pimsleur's Quick and Simple Egyptian Arabic as an audiobook on iTunes. I've been listening to it during a 2 hour break I have while I'm at college and it's the greatest way to learn a language that I've ever come across. Coming from a person who can speak 7 languages, I only wish that people read these reviews and save themselves the headache of other programs.

I have recently started this program and forced my boyfriend to join me in my Arabic-learning escapades. We've been able to start easy conversations in Arabic and kind of throw a few Arabic-speaking people for a loop because we can start out a conversation fine before the "whoa! that's all I know!"

You're only learning phrases. It's conversational. You could stop here... BUT if you realllly want to LEARN the language, I suggest attempting to learn to read it. I recently picked up Rosetta Stone after struggling with "100 words in Arabic" .. My boyfriend hates Rosetta because you just get thrown into the mix and are supposed to figure everything out blindly. This worked well for me. I liked the alphabet that was available and the ease of use for the program.

He has enjoyed the "100 words in Arabic" book because he's great at memorizing word and associate them with the images.

As for writing, my has sloppy handwriting in English, so his Arabic scribbles leave much to be desired--- but he has it down. I'm able to write one letter after maybe a minute and a few mistakes. You're writing backwards. But knowing that I can write a word and visualize what I'm hearing in Pimsleur helps*

I know I got off topic, but this program is quick, painless, and highly useful. I hope they continue to focus on EGYPTIAN Arabic in the future. It's hard to find-- and in my particular location in the States, there are a lot of Egyptian people for me to practice my newly acquired speaking skills.

Although Rosetta and 100 words are not in Egyptian Arabic, they're great for learning to read! It's all the same in writing.