Customer Reviews

Arabic (Egyptian) (Pimsleur Language Program)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Note that these CDs are specifically in the Damascus dialect, ask a native speaker if that dialect will work where you are going. My wife is Syrian from Damascus, and I found these tapes much more useful than the class I took from an Egyptian teacher. The spoken dialects are very different. Now my wife's family is actually understanding the things I say, it's worth every penny.

My guess is that the critical review below stems from trying to use the Eastern Arabic CDs for a trip to Egypt. You have to get the Egyptian CDs to learn the Egyptian dialect. Egyptians struggle to understand my wife, they are probably not going to understand an English speaker trying to speak the Damascus dialect.

This is a review of Pimsleur's Eastern Arabic I, 2nd Edition
Updated 19 August 2009

ABSOLUTELY SUPERB!!!
FIVE STARS HANDS DOWN, 10/10
Crystal Clear Speech from native Syrian speakers

NOTE
This is the first installment in the Eastern Arabic series. After you complete this course you can directly go on to
Pimsleur Eastern Arabic II, Copyright 2006. After completing the latter you can jump to Pimsleur Eastern Arabic III, Copyright 2008.

Pimsleur's 1st edition of Arabic (Eastern) I will not help you make a smooth transition into Eastern Arabic II. Therefore I highly recommend you study with this product, namely Pimsleur's Eastern Arabic I, 2nd Edition.

To illustrate a different aspect of Arabic study I will elaborate further:
If one learns MSA (Modern Standard Arabic), one will learn the language of the Koran, aka Classical Arabic, this is a language used in books, not a language used to communicate with people on a regular basis.
If John Doe learns MSA, he will be eventually understood when he speaks in a shop, and then his interlocutor will respond to John in his/her local dialect, which John will find unintelligible and then the conversation will be over. Nevertheless, if John Doe learns a dialect such as Eastern (Syrian) or Egyptian, he will have a better chance of understanding the response from his Arabic speaking interlocutor.

In my opinion, this is the best Arabic Course if you are headed to Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, where Eastern Arabic is spoken. Additionally, after completing this course, I personally have not had much difficulty in communicating with people from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE (where Gulf Arabic is spoken). Note that Iraqis speak Iraqi Arabic which is different but similar to Syrian, but you will still be able to communicate. The Gulf dialect is also different but more similar to Syrian than Egyptian.

If you are heading for Egypt, you should get Pimsleur Egyptian Arabic instead. Egyptian and Eastern, while sharing the same root have evolved over the centuries.

What an excellent starting point! Unlike most tapes, this set was slow enough to keep up with and breaks down the pronunciation of a word into manageable pieces. The repetition is helpful to remember the vocabulary. I used it in the car going to work everyday and finished all the tapes in one month. My only regret is that there isn't another expanded set available.

Tapes provided a great starter kit for learning. I'm ready for more. The only improvement I would make to this starter series is to increase the number of examples used for possessive nouns.

I have just completed the Comprehensive Eastern Arabic III and I am truly amazed by its results.

Thanks to such a method one manages with practically no effort to speak and read arabic at an intermediate level.

Having previously purchased Comprehensive Arabic I & II (through another online site however) I was looking forward to the III one...I was anything but disappointed.

In the III series, we are being repeated knowledge acquired through the I & II while introduced to a new vocabulary of approximately 500 words.

My only objection: this is not a method to complete within 30 days as by the Pimsleur advertisements. It was sometimes taking me up to 3 days to comprehend a lesson and move on to the following one. Still, this was worth the effort...

This product is a great way for someone with little to no knowledge of Arabic to get a solid footing in the language. I disagree with the other reviewer who says that they should have released the arabic program in modern standard arabic, as opposed to the easter dialect. Most people when they are learning a language are learning it for a specific reason, (i.e a trip, or because they are romantically envolved with someone who speaks it) In this case this program is directed towards people who want to learn Arabic to communicate with people in the middle east, specifically in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine, hence the name "eastern arabic". If a traveler to any of these countries spent their time learning Modern Standard Arabic prior to their trip they would find it very useless, as NO ONE uses it on a daily basis, and they will not be able to understand a thing that anyone in these countries is talking about. The only people who should learn MSA are people that are studying the language in depth and who seek to become fluent in the literary langugae, and be able to read books and watch news broadcasts in Arabic, which are usually broadcast in MSA to ensure intelligiblity to Arabic speakers accross the Arabic Speaking world who may not be from the specific dialect-area where the broadcast originated from (ie. Algezeera.)
For most people the fun of learning a language is being able to have every day conversations with people, greetings, asking for directions, ordering meals etc. What good would it do the average tourist/business person if on trip to the middle east they could understand a news broadcast, but not be able to understand if someone on the street was simply asking them what their name is? Also, contrary to what this other reviewer said, the media, literature, and the educated do NOT communicate in Arabic in any Muslim country where Arabic is not the official language. Arabic will be of absolutely no use to you if you're traveling to Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, or any other non-arab Muslim country, unless of course you happen to be traveling to these countries for some kind of Islamic conference where you will be reading the Koran. As a final point, Pimsleur seeks to teach its customers to speak an every day version of the language they are learning, and the truth is that Modern Standard Arabic is not a language used in everyday situations. Another problem with learning MSA as opposed to a specific dialect, is that although the people to whom you are speaking will likely be able to understand what you are saying, you will not understand their responses.

I enjoy the repetition of Pimsleur. It helps you recall what you've learned and remember the new words/phrases.

Eastern Arabic III is fun and challenging, like all Pimsleur courses. I just wish 1) there was equivalent-level material for other dialects (Egyptian, Sudanese), and 2) I knew what to do after finishing level III. Visit Syria, I guess :)

The Pimsleur method has been working very well for me so far. It really makes learning foreign languages easy.

For some reason it has been a desire of mine to learn Arabic. It has been a daunting task, especially when looking at books that attempt to describe how you should say certain words.

My desire to learn the language was rekindled by an upcoming trip to Egypt so I tried these tapes. I found that they are wonderful and make Arabic easy and managable. I look forward to using my abilities, and actually be able to understand what is going on around me in Egypt. The only problem is that I don't know which tape set to buy next to learn more without repeating what I have learned.