Standard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course [Paperback]

Eckehard Schulz (Author), Günther Krahl (Author), Wolfgang Reuschel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521774659 | ISBN-13: 978-0521774659 | Publication Date: August 15, 2000 | Edition: Revised

This book presents a comprehensive foundation course for beginning students of written and spoken Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), providing an essential grounding for successful communication with speakers of the many colloquial varieties. This long-established and successful text has been completely revised with the needs of English-speaking learners especially in mind, and will prove invaluable to students and teachers alike.

Step-by-step guide to understanding written and spoken texts

Develops conversational ability as well as reading and writing skills

Arabic-English Glossary containing 2600 entries

Fresh texts and dialogues containing up-to-date data on the Middle East and North Africa

Includes Arab folklore, customs, proverbs, and short essays on contemporary topics

Grammatical terms also given in Arabic enabling students to attend language courses in Arab countries

Provides a wide variety of exercises and drills to reinforce grammar points, vocabulary learning and communicative strategies

Includes a key to the exercises

Accompanying cassettes also available.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This text is the most comprehensive and thoroughly designed work of its kind. Students of Arabic may benefit much by the time they absorb its contents, and their knowledge of Arabic will increase immensely since the authors really want students to learn how to communicate in the language." Northeast Conference Review

Book Description

This book presents a comprehensive foundation course for beginning students of written and spoken Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). A step-by-step guide to understanding Arabic texts, it enables the student to develop conversational ability as well as reading and writing skills. It includes up-to-date data on the Middle East and North Africa, an Arabic-English glossary containing 2600 entries, a variety of exercises, and a key. Accompanying cassettes are also available. This long-established and successful text has been completely revised for English-speaking learners, and will prove invaluable to students and teachers alike.

Product Details

• Paperback: 656 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; Revised edition (August 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521774659
• ISBN-13: 978-0521774659
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #365,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #84 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Arabic

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit of an "extreme" in academic study of language, January 24, 2001

By 

Scooter "SRD" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Standard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course (Paperback)

I wrote the first review of this book above, before I started using it for study, and I've had to abandon it midway through. It is extremely academic in terms of introducing grammar and syntax points, and almost unreadable unless you're a linguist with a firm command of linguistic terms. It is extremely thorough in terms of grammar, syntax and even some prounciation notes, but more of a reference than a text for self-study, given the very dry tone. Also, lessons have extremely long word lists (sometimes as many as 100 new words in a lesson) which can be impossible to memorize in one large chunk, and very overwhelming. Without knowing the word lists, you can't even read the example texts or do the exercises, making study of one lesson very long. Some of the words on the lists are absolutely useless or mind-boggling as to why they included them... Good as a reference text to have on hand, but for actual study, stick with the Munther Younes books (Cornell prof, Yale Publishing.)

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What classrooms should be using, February 11, 2007

By 

Kiro (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Standard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course (Paperback)

This is a 5-star book, but basically all that means is it's the best on the market for general needs. This has been adapated from a German text, and the perfect Arabic textbook for English speakers doesn't appear to exist yet, but Standard is very close. Follow it up with the advanced version in the series (mostly texts but very good selections). This is what classrooms should be using, most opt for either the Big Orange Book or Al-kitaab fii Ta'allum Al-'Arabiyya. With a teacher, this book is better than either.
Moreover Standard Arabic is most likely the best tool for self-study out there, and this is the context in which I've used it. However I recommend the reader have some exposure to arabic beforehand, especially with script as Standard's biggest shortcoming is a lack of transliteration (which has created ambiguities such as whether a waaw is to be read as a consonant or a vowel)

This is NOT a straight grammar, and there are probably better reference texts for MSA out there, however one of the appendices is devoted to 47-pages of paradigms, and there are comprehensive subject indices in Arabic and English but you will have to do a lot of flipping.
The only audio available with this book is cassettes (unless there is a new edition somewhere). This is simply a very concice lesson book in the modern style of language teaching.
For self-study, Al-Kitab will get you there (books 1 and 2), however the only advantage are the DVDs, and the Advanced Standard goes places the second Al-Kitab doesn't. Also Al-Kitab gets far more revisions so it is possible it will be improved, at the moment Standard is much more complete, contains more excercies, and is half the price.
For self-study there are several places to begin before using the Standard, namely:

J.R. Smart's Arabic from the Teach Yourself Series
An Introduction to Modern Arabic by Ziadeh/Winder from Dover
Mastering Arabic from Hippocrene (this is really a introductory course and Hippocrene's 'Beginning Arabic' is useful only for the 60 pages of Arabic literature for the very advanced student and the inclusion of F.E. Sommer's 'The Arabic Writing in Five Lessons with a Key' which is still the best short introduction to the script for the absolute beginner)
Or of course Book I of Al-Kitab, but both Standard Books are half the price of both Al-Kitab books

In summation I recommend the Elementary-Intermediate SA book for the following reasons:
1) It is a far better course book than Al-Kitab except for the added multimedia that Al-Kitab brings; and both are better than the Orange Books
2) For self-study it is comparatively more complete and up-to-date than anything from Dover, Hippocrene, or TY
3) The vocabulary lists are extensive
4) There are more excercises than in any other Arabic Textbook I've seen
5) Correct grammatical terms are used throughout - AND are given in Arabic and referred to as such throughout, so if one has a problem an Arabic speaker will immediately understand what one is asking
6) The Advanced SA follow-up is the furthest text in subject matter for English speakers
7) Very durable paper and a larger type-setting for Arabic characters than many other texts

Caveat: Other viewers have described this text as "dry" as there are very few pictures taking up space and there is a good deal of political and economic subject matter in the excercises and word choices; however, I can guarantee no text exists with both a complete treatment of the language AND pictures on every page, nor is likely to ever be published in English. Also the glossary is only Arabic-English and is ordered by roots (but this is also the case with the best Arabic-English dictionary by Hans Wehr, which should complement SA, though its own glossary is self-contained) Remember this is MSA, and though many colloquialisms are included it is understood that many conversations will be in dialect and require exposure from some other source.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A headache of a book..., November 15, 2003

By 

ms. coupal (NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Standard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course (Paperback)

"A noun cannot only be defined more closely by an attributive adjective, but also by a subsequent noun in the genitive. The relation of both nouns to each other is that of a governing noun (nomen regens) to an attributive adjunct(nomen rectum) in the function..."

If that makes sense to you, and you can use instructions like that to construct sentences, this book will be very helpful to you. It is fairly comprehensive and moves quickly. However, for the rest of us, the dense grammar terminology and the otherwise bewildering presentation of concepts require too much time deciphering the authors' English- much less utilizing it for learning Arabic! Not recommended for teaching yourself.