501 Arabic Verbs: Fully Conjugated in All Forms | List Price: $18.99
Discount Price: $11.57
|
Binding: Paperback
Useful but the organization could have been better. [Posted on 2008-04-16]
This is the first verb book I've owned for Arabic. It appears to be a useful and worthwhile reference. Verbs in Arabic aren't quite as complex as in some other languages, but it certainly is a good idea to have a reference book like this when you are learning. I only have two small complaints and both deal with organization. First of all, verbs are not one per page, but run across pages which makes the book a little more annoying than it had to be. If they can fit all 14 conjugations for a Spanish verb on one page, I would think they could squeeze in one verb per page in Arabic too. Second, the layout of the verbs seems a little counterintuitive and at odds with many textbooks. 3rd person forms are listed at the top of the chart and 1st person forms are at the bottom. This is the opposite of usual practice in many books.
Helpful and well organized [Posted on 2008-04-17]
The introduction is a clear explanation of Arabic verbs written for non-experts. In the paradigms, the 14 personal forms of each aspect ("tense") and voice are clearly laid out. The third masculine singular perfect form is at the top of each paradigm because it is always the simplest form of each verb.
The only complaint I have about the two indexes is that there is no distinctive first page for each index. Each just starts at the very top with the title in the upper margin. At first I thought that the alphabetization was messed up, but finally I noticed that at the top of the first six pages was one title, and on the last six pages there was another title. But this is, ultimately, a minor quibble. Once you notice the different titles, the organization becomes clear. An English index would be nice, but it is hardly indispensable, since students can and should consult dictionaries anyway.
Although no individual paradigm goes across pages, some people would like to see all the forms of each verb on a single page. To accomplish this with Arabic, though, you would have to use microscopic print, have much larger pages, or omit the examples. All things considered, I think the publishers have made reasonable choices. I speak as a linguist who has spent many years using numerous reference works for many languages, and also as a professional editor who is familiar with the kinds of trade-offs that have to be made when planning any publication. You have to compromise somewhere; the compromises in this book are, at least in my view, acceptable.
Decent Explination of Arabic Verbs, But Bad Organization [Posted on 2008-05-27]
The first part of the book has a decent explanation of Arabic verbs, their tenses and usage.
However, the actual listings of the verbs is not as well done. The organization of the verb conjugations isn't easily understood at first and it isn't well explained. As for formatting, the pagination often breaks verb clusters at odd places and the formatting doesn't pick up column headers for lists when they are broken and carry onto a second page. These two missteps make following the conjugations difficult to follow.
The book does include good examples of how the verbs are used in sentences, and does a good job of starting a verb listing with its root and then extending that root to as many applications as possible.
Finally, the index has the verbs listed in alphabetical order in Arabic, without English translations. There is no English verb index at all. This makes finding a verb very difficult for beginners and even for intermediate students who don't have a dictionary at hand.
Over all, its a decent tool to help learn Arabic, but it isn't directed at beginners and it shouldn't be a student's only guide to verb conjugation.
useful, but needs much better indexing [Posted on 2008-06-04]
Used together with Hans Wehr's indispensable dictionary, this book is very useful for the intermediate learner of Arabic. However, the lack of English indexing is extremely frustrating. In short, it's definitely worth having until the next edition comes out - hopefully with a much-improved index.
PROS:
1. Each of the 501 verbs is conjugated neatly in its 65 different forms according to:
- person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd)
- number (singular, dual, plural)
- gender (feminine and masculine)
- voice (active and passive)
- mood (perfect (maadhi), imperfect (marfoo'a), subjunctive (mansoob), jussive (majroor), imperative (amr))
- active participle (sighat al-fa'il), passive participle (sighat al-maf'ool), and verbal noun (masdar)
These are all the forms that Arabic professors expect you (as an intermediate or advanced student) to know off the top of your head, but that few of us can actually recite perfectly - especially for weak verbs, hollow verbs, etc. So it's great having it all in once place as a reference. Even for the beginner, seeing all of this laid out for each verb in one place will give you a good visual schema for how Arabic verbs work.
2. Each verb comes with three or four example sentences using different forms of the verb in context. Very helpful if you're trying to learn new verbs.
3. Each verb comes with its verb pattern (wazn, I to X) and root (jadhr). The book is alphabetized by jadhr, just like Hans Wehr. The verbs are also indexed at the back of the book alphabetically in Arabic as well (i.e. by spelling of the pattern of the verb listed, not just by root).
4. Unlike some other reviewers, I don't find the type to be too small. It's fine. A lot of Arabic texts are written in smaller print than this anyway.
CONS:
1. Although each verb comes with the English meaning, there is no way to look up a verb by its English meaning without flipping through the entire book. This quickly becomes really annoying. It would have taken the publisher a couple of hours and added only a few pages to the end of the book to include an index of the 501 verbs by English definition. This is by far the biggest problem with the book. Without this problem, this would be a five-star book. The way it is, it's about 3 1/2 stars.
2. Although the verbs are indexed at the back of the book and numbered 1-501, page numbers aren't listed to lead you to the verb. Even worse, although the index tells you what verb #70 (out of 501) is, there's no #70 written next to the verb in the body of the book! So the index numbering is completely useless. A big oversight.
3. To make this book even better, it would help to have (a) the plural of the verbal noun (masdar) listed (since these are often irregular) and (b) the prepositions that are used with each verb. I find that I have to look to the example sentences to sort out which preposition comes after each verb, and sometimes that doesn't even clear up the question.
4. There are a few typos to watch out for - I've noticed a couple of sukkuns that should actually be hamzas. But this is a very minor gripe - it's almost 100% correct as far as I can tell.
Worst Verb Book Ever [Posted on 2008-09-03]
I have verb books for six different languages in my library. This book is by far the least useful. It proves that either a) Arabic is not suited for verb books or b) the author did not test this on students before publishing it.
Negatives: No English index of verbs, no transcriptions for beginners, no discussion of prefixes, or verb morphology at all, and worst of all, glaring omissions of common verbs. I have no idea how anyone who had less than a full year of Arabic would even begin to use this book.
Click here for more details and discount information...
|
){kind=link}