Customer Reviews

The Connectors in Modern Standard Arabic

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

 

 

This book is organized into 27 lessons, each covering some 3-8 connectors. By connectors, the authors mean the various particles that serve to conjoin two or more verbs, nouns, phrases, clauses, sentences, etc. Some simple examples in English would be "and", "but", and "or". Some more complex examples are "as for", "in order to", "provided that", and "in connection with". The premise of this book is that such constructions aren't covered adequately in most Arabic-language textbooks. I agree, but I would point out that this is also true of other languages besides Arabic. In fact, I believe a similar book for the English language would be quite a useful reference for students and writers.

This book is an excellent review text for someone who has studied Arabic before whether their level is advanced or intermediate. If you've ever had the frustrating experience of understanding almost every word in a paragraph yet still not comprehending the overall meaning, this book will do wonders for your reading comprehension.

Beginners could also benefit from a book of this type if the examples were translated, which they are not. This is unfortunate and should perhaps be remedied in a future edition.

Ths is the most useful book I've found yet for the intermediate or advanced student of Arabic. While a grammar book teaches you all about morphology and is usually sparse on details of syntax, this book will lead you towards the goal of writing idiomatic modern standard Arabic. But to the real beginner, it will seem daunting and over-specialized - it did to me when I first saw it.

I have used this book as the class text for a grammar class taught at ILI in Cairo, and I have found this book to be very helpful in both providing structural help, but also in providing invaluable assistance in composition, something I had not really had prior to using this book. Not only is it useful as a an in class text, it is also useful as a reference; for example this book's discussion of the various uses of ' is particularly helpful. The reason I only give it 4 stars is two-fold: The first is that frequently the examples given require a body of vocabulary that is perhaps past the ability of a student who is using this as an in-class tool. This may not be an issue for a more advanced student who is using this as a reference, so bear this in mind. The other issue with this book is the physical quality of the book. Perhaps there is a better printing in the US, but version I purchased here in Cairo fell apart after opening the book twice. And I mean fell apart. The binding was of such poor quality that almost all the pages fell out immediately, so buyer beware.

I gave it 4 stars, but really it would be more like 3 & 3/4. It would be close to 5, if the author weren't so lazy. I was excited at the prospect of a reference dedicated solely to those little words that can mean everything in a language. The book did deliver that; a fairly comprehensive review & explanation of the connectors, grouped logically by chapter. A few gaps here & there in terms of what other items I felt should have been included, but that's always the case in every text I've seen, ever. Does a better than decent job in breaking down the semantic nuances in constructions.

What he lacks, that even a more advanced student would appreciate, are translations for his examples (which are sparse, at times). I was a bit put off by the number of exercises as well, seeing as this is a reference, not a text book. He could of at least added an answer key for them. (hence, lazy). This makes it feel like "filler".

On the whole, well worth the money at $20 +/-. I still refer back to it regularly.

This book is certainly one of its kind in presenting an important aspect of the Arabic language not well covered in the standard books on Arabic grammar. Each chapter begins with a text for reading highlighting some connectors that will be then discussed in detail. A translation of the text is provided. Each chapter has numerous examples followed by exercises.

The utility of the book can be increased by providing vocabulary and key to the exercises for someone studying the book without a teacher.

The four stars I give this book are actually 3.5 stars. It is a very helpful reference in that it provides quite a comprehensive presentation and explanation of connectors, vital to properly understanding not just Arabic but any other language. However, the translations of the texts illustrating the use of the various connectors in each chapter are not of the quality one would expect from this kind of work, there could be more exercises and a key would be helpful to less advanced students, and as for the examples, although good, less advanced students could really benefit from a translation. In other words it is a solid, good reference book with room for improvement.

As someone who has taken Arabic for three years, this book was extremely helpful to me! If you often read sentences in Arabic and understand every word but still don't understand what is happening in the text, you probably don't understand connectors as well as you think, and this book's lessons, explanations, and practice questions are VERY helpful! However, I would recommend readers at least be at the intermediate level of Arabic before trying to use this book - it assumes you know a lot of vocabulary and grammar already.