55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great beginner's book, December 7, 2003
This review is from: Teach Yourself Beginner's Arabic Script (Paperback)
Learning Arabic presents several diffculties for the non-native, the first of which is the alphabet, or more accurately, script. This is because, unlike English and other European languages, there is no true printed form for the language, being a true script. The main problem with it is that the letters change their form depending on the context.
At 155 pages, this is almost a mini-course on Arabic, not just on the script, but the overall focus is on teaching you the script, and for that it serves very well. But for someone who doesn't want to have a lot of extra vocabulary or grammar piled on initially, I would recommend the Nicholas Awde and Putros Samano book, The Arabic Alphabet, instead.
I have a slight personal preference for that book over this one, as it focuses more on the script and doesn't worry about the more advanced grammatical topics, which really require a separate volume. As a result, it's shorter and to the point and is only 100 pages long. But both books are excellent and do their job very well. I just think this one would better suited someone who enjoys learning languages and already has skills or training in that area.
If that sounds like you, then this book will give you a little more basic Arabic vocabulary and grammar in the process of teaching you the script than the Awde book, and the author does a fine job of explaining all the concepts clearly and concisely. There are sections on verbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and how they are formed, as well as other aspects of the grammar.
The author also discusses basic phonetics and phonology, and how the vowels and consonants of Arabic differ from English. One odd aspect of the phonetic notation is the number "9" is used for the Arabic glottal stop. I've seen this in one other Arabic beginner's book. It's not standard notation but it's okay for a beginner's book, as long as you know what it means. The author defines it, but I missed that somehow and kept seeing these 9's all over the place, and I finally figured out what it was.
As both books point out, the main problem in learning the Arabic script is the letters change their form depending on their position in the word, in other words, on whether they're at the beginning, middle, or end of the word. Then there is the infamous "Hamzah," or diacritical mark, which can appear over various letters in the word, and can float around a lot. The rules for this get very complicated, and most Arabic speakers don't even know all of them, but the basic principles aren't hard to learn. This makes it very similar in English to the apostrophe, which causes problems for English speakers also. Just these two things can make the alphabet a trying experience to learn initially for the foreign-language speaker.
Both the Awde and Samanos or this book are excellent and will help you clear that initial hurdle of learning the alphabet that must be overcome before you can really embark on a serious study of Arabic grammar and language. If you're flush I'd say buy both books, since they complement and reinforce each other, and they're not that expensive to begin with.
Despite the difficulty with the alphabet/script, Arabic has very regular verb constructions, and dictionaries in fact can refer to them by numbers I-X. The three cases Arabic posseses, the nominative, accusative, and jussive, are really no longer used in actual conservation, and you're only likely to find them in scholarly discourse or in the Koran. This makes the case system no more complex than Spanish or English or French, which is a big help there. In contrast, Russian still has six cases and German technically has four.
Overall, a fine beginner's book that is almost an essential supplement to any course in Arabic, especially if you're going the self-study route (as I am).
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50 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good, October 19, 2001
My Arabic studies have been placed on hold while I go back to college (prepping [hopefully] for a MA in linguistics). I was using this along with "The Arabic Alphabet" (by Awde and Samano). Personally, I'm finding it easier to go through the other book first, as Awde and Samano's book is very concise, and gives stroke direction. This book is useful, but the script (printed and handwritten) is very small, and the handwriting is a bit "simplified" and "spartan". The handwriting in the book is true to form for "real" Arabic handwriting. However, being an introductory book, I think the author should have made the print larger, and given large, clear examples for the student.
Another critique is that the author rarely uses vowels. The author does this because someone going to an Arabic-speaking nation or picking up an Arabic newspaper will never see these (except on foreign names). He does not want to make the student dependant on these. However, from my experience, learning the pronunciation of the vocabulary was much easier if I could add in the vowels, and so I was able to learn words much faster.
The information seemed very good, but was quite basic. This is NOT a guide to speaking Arabic. It's goal is to familiarize the student enough to read common signs and warnings, tickets and schedules, bills and checks, and as the author puts it, "read a headline and get enough from the article to know what's going on." It's an introductory book, and as that, it serves its function well. It is also a good resource for understanding handwriting, which, as stated earlier, is a very "simplified and spartan" version of the formal script.
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