Your First 100 Words in Arabic : Beginner's Quick & Easy Guide to Demystifying Non-Roman Scripts

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Customer Reviews:

Works extremely well re script - not so well re sound [Posted on 2005-12-17]
Original review (prior to formal Arabic instruction): This book was my "ice-breaker" to learning Arabic, for personal interest in Christian-Muslim dialogue, and professional interest in Islamic world view(s). The key to this book's exceptional utility is the ease of associating sound patterns of phonetic transliteration of words for everyday objects (household items, clothing articles, etc.) with the written patterns of Arabic characters. Although I totally lacked familiarity with the Arabic alphabet, the correspondence between "sound and sight" was remarkably easy to decipher, granted the basic level of vocabulary. While I don't expect more advanced vocabulary or grammar to be nearly so easy, the book accomplishes its objective: Removing the intimidation of a completely unfamiliar alphabet. Well done!

As an aside, I've found that the ability to read music (a skill I've only recently acquired) helps significantly. It's a very short "leap" from reading pitches represented by non-Roman characters (musical notes) to reading phonemes represented by a non-Roman alphabet.

Addendum following instruction: Since writing the above review, I've completed a semester in beginning Arabic, and I now have a mild-to-moderate criticism of the book. There are basic sounds and sound patterns that simply cannot be represented by English phoneticisms, period. So for the purpose of learning the *sounds* represented by Arabic *script*, English phoneticisms are misleading in some cases, and flat out wrong in others.

For those already familiar with Arabic sounds, phoneticisms or transliterations are merely "codes" rather than representations. Unfortunately, this book gives the (often false) impression of *representing* the sounds. Readers who get a false sense of confidence in mispronunciations learned from this book (as I did) may be discouraged when they first encounter the difficulties of correct pronunciation. That's where my music reading analogy falls apart: In music training you actually hear the notes represented by the symbols, whereas the edition of this book that I reviewed did not include a CD.

The book still works very well re demystifing Arabic *script*, but the apparent representations of Arabic *sounds* should be taken with a grain of salt. For the English speaker, many Arabic sounds and ways of verbally connecting sounds are totally unfamiliar. To learn to properly pronounce Arabic on even the most basic level, inter-personal instruction is an absolute must. Recordings are good supplements for "ear training," but they cannot provide the correction essential for properly *verbalizing* Arabic sounds.

As an example of why this correction is essential, well into my first semester of very exacting instruction, I could detect the anglicized mispronunciations of acquaintances who've "picked up" Arabic overseas without benefit of intensive instruction. In contrast, on the first day of my second semester, my new teacher, a native *Saudi* Arab speaker, took me aside and remarked on the correctness of my pronunciation. Interestingly, my first teacher was a native *Sudanese* Arab speaker, indicating that modern standard Arabic really is just that - a standardized way of speaking as well as writing across nationalities.

Good place to start [Posted on 2006-07-10]
This is a good beginners book. If you already know the alphabet and want to incorporate some simple vocabularly this is for you.
It helps if you can already read the Arabic script, but its not necessary as the book gives the transliteration too.

I found it most useful for teaching children. The flash cards and simple exercises keep it interesting.

Mumtaaz [Posted on 2006-11-23]
I think it's an excellent book for beginners. The only problem is the transliteration for the tough Arabic letters (Ayn, Ghayn, Khaa, Ha). Overall it's a solid building block.

ECELLENT BOOK! [Posted on 2007-04-11]
GOOD BOOK, I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ONE ON DVD, PLUS SALHA ALSO

A refreshing book [Posted on 2008-05-24]
The book helps me in refreshing my memory on earlier knowledge of arabic alphabets and how they are used. It is recommended for those who want to learn arabic language from zero point.

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