Basic Arabic Workbook: For Revision and Practice [Paperback]

John Mace (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books; Bilingual edition (May 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0781811260
• ISBN-13: 978-0781811262
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #917,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Book - I cannot say enough good about it, June 10, 2007

By 

David Nardella (Illinois) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Basic Arabic Workbook: For Revision and Practice (Paperback)

I purchased this book shortly after it was released, in approximately January of 2007. As background, I decided to learn some Arabic due to my work occassionally requiring me meet with individuals whose native language is Arabic. Last summer I attended a formal 3 week intensive Arabic college course in Chicago, but found that the grammar taught there was overwhelming and complicated. Further, a native Arabic speaking friend of mine told me that the formal class I took provided such a high degree of grammar usage - it was not practical for everyday communication. In all seriousness, communicating in Arabic using the formal "long pronunciation" would be analogous to walking into a bar in the South Side of Chicago and attempting to order a draft beer using "shakespherian English." As is quoted on page 12, "This book uses short pronunciation." Author John Mace gets directly to the point in this book, and the vocabulary is completely popular and practical without unnecessary complicated grammar. Do buy this book if you want to learn Arabic - but, do first obtain a solid grounding in the Arabic script. I learned the script in about 3 days of solid practice and it is not as difficult as I thought. I believe John Mace also has an Arabic Script book as well.
Special thanks to this author for his ability to provide practical information and vocabulary fi-l-'arabee. I have pre-ordered his second book due this month! Dave

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic resource for self-teaching -- but not for beginners, April 13, 2008

By 

Karen Nelson (Takoma Park, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Basic Arabic Workbook: For Revision and Practice (Paperback)

As a self-taught student of Arabic, I can't say enough good things about this book. I flip through every new Arabic book I can find at Borders, but most of them are either too easy (ie the Teach Yourself series) or require a teachers (ie Arabic Connectors, Al-Kitaab, etc). John Mace has finally produced a book that allows you to understand the grammar, learn and pronounce relevant vocabulary, and do short but very effective exercises.

However, don't use it as your first book! In my case (and I'm a language nut) I used a couple of Jane Wightwrick's books, Let's Read the Arabic Newspapers, 1000 Arabic Media words, and Kalila wa Dimna first. Otherwise, this book would have done me in: a) it is quite dry, with the majority of exercise sentences being something like "The conference of experts rejected the report of the Ministry". b) it introduces not only the relevant grammar, but also many exceptions / variations in endings / etc at the same time, so that you really need to read carefully in order to get it all. I have gone through most of the chapters 2 or 3 times, including all of the exercises. c) the pace is pretty brisk, as with present tense of all verb types in a single chapter (sound, doubled, initial-waw, 3 variants of hollow, 3 variants of ending-defective, and 6 doubly defective verbs)

A minor problem, there are a number of typos in the exercises, usually in transliteration, sometimes in the arabic spelling, or a wrong word used, etc. Most are not too hard to spot but, when I don't understand why my answer is wrong (since I don't have a teacher to ask) I often wonder whether it is my mistake or the book's...

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Reference Than Workbook, October 10, 2007

By 

Richard Deveno (Alameda, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Basic Arabic Workbook: For Revision and Practice (Paperback)

An unusual but excellent text. The author conducts a point by point review of grammar rules while also introducing a news and media-oriented selection of related vocabulary items in each chapter. The grammar overview is very concise, written in as non-technical a manner as possible and can be described as pithy. John Mace has a wonderful way of distilling rules simply and clearly. He also narrows the grammar down to the most useful subset possible. Although short exercises punctuate the text, the book is more a review than a workbook.