Arabic For Dummies

Great book

Muy bueno para aprender lo básico en gramática arabe

Sent this book to my son and he loved it very easy to read and follow. Would recommend to new users.

I just received the book a couple days ago, it seems to be a good book for me to get acquainted with the language, the only thing I dislike though is that all of the Arabic script is too small and I have to squint to read it.

I am learning Arabic because it is my husbands first language and this explains it so well and has helped me understand it so much better. The book did come scratched up i don’t know what happened there.

Very helpful! I’ve been doing Duolingo for months, but this book is a must to understand vowels and daily uses.

Looks useful, except the text is way too small for all the diacritical marks. I'm returning it.

Great book! I've been learning Arabic for almost a year now becaue its my Husband's first language (he speaks English fluently as well as 2 other languages)! He is originally from Egypt and its important to me that I learn his language because he has learned ours...also he is teaching it to our 1 year old twins and we go visit Egypt every year :) I recommend this book for learning Arabic or any language you are interested in learning.

This, in my opinion, could have been an excellent book if it had been devoid of what I consider as two serious flaws: 1) the total absence of the Arabic transliteration system of short vowels, which allows recognizing the vowels in a word by means of specific signs (fatha, kasra, damma). Short vowel identification marks are used to teach Arabic both to children and beginner adult learners. These signs are also present in any Arabic dictionary and in the editions of the Qur'an, to allow non-Arab readers to identify the sound of the words. The Arabic alphabet in this text, on the other hand, does not in any way allow the reader to understand which sound the words correspond to, so it is necessary to rely solely on the Anglo-American transliteration system of the Library of Congress. Since Arabic, unlike English, employs a fundamentally phonetic alphabet, I do not understand why the reader is forced to resort exclusively to the English language to recognize the sound of words. In this way, the reader will hardly be able to learn both written and spoken language, since the Anglo-American transliteration by its nature can only provide an approximative sound. 2) Furthermore, the book does not teach how to recognize how to identify the written form of the initial, final and median letters (which in Arabic sometimes changes radically) making the Arabic text therefore practically useless for any beginner. Questo, a mio parere, poteva essere un libro eccellente se fosse stato privo di due serie pecche: 1) l'assenza totale del sistema di traslitterazione arabo delle vocali corte, che permette di riconoscere le vocali successive alle consonanti per mezzo di specifici segni (fatha, kasra, damma). I segni d'identificazione delle vocali corte sono usati nel mondo arabo, così come in tutti i corsi di rilievo occidentali che ho avuto modo di visionare finora, per insegnare l'arabo nelle scuole sia ai bambini che a studenti adulti principianti. Questi segni sono inoltre presenti in ogni dizionario arabo e nelle edizioni del Corano, per consentire ai lettori non arabi d'identificare il suono delle parole. L'alfabeto arabo riportato in questo testo invece non permette in alcun modo di capire a quale suono corrispondono le parole, per cui occorre fare affidamento unicamente al sistema di traslitterazione angloamericano della Library of Congress. Poiché l'arabo, a differenza dell'inglese, impiega un alfabeto fondamentalmente fonetico, non capisco perché il lettore sia costretto a ricorrere esclusivamente alla lingua inglese per riconoscere il suono delle parole. In questo modo il lettore difficilmente riuscirà a imparare sia il linguaggio scritto che quello parlato, poiché le traslitterazioni angloamericane per loro natura non sono in grado di articolare con esattezza il suono delle parole. 2) Inoltre nel testo non viene insegnato a riconoscere come identificare la forma scritta delle lettere iniziale, finale e mediana (che in arabo cambia talvolta radicalmente) rendendo il testo arabo quindi praticamente inutilizzabile per qualsiasi principiante.

This book is a nice overall guide to book to the language, which should be bought with Arabic Character Writing For Dummies, and Judith Meyer's book Arabic Script Hacking For Beginners, which itself is so great. With these three books you will be in a great position to start a wonderful journey into this complex language (considered by many to be the hardest second language in the world to learn for native English speakers). Indeed it is a hard language, but as someone who speaks Arabic and Japanese (which itself is also considered a super-hard language) a passion for learning will take you very far in either, no matter how much talent or resources you have. With Arabic For Dummies in hand, you will be speaking basic Arabic in no time... and having a lot of fun wi=hile doing so.

Abit disappoint it did not come with a cd to listen to

Just what I needed.

Uno de los pocos libros para aprender árabe estándar que se pueden leer adecuadamente en Kindle, créeme, he buscado hasta por debajo de las piedras y son contados, la mayoría son libros sólo en físico o lo que hay para Kindle o tiene la fuente muy pequeña el texto árabe o sale desfasado y hecho una sopa. Eso sí, las tablas se leen un poco mejor en un Paperwhite que en un básico por el tamaño de la pantalla, para no tener que estar agrandando con los dedos y desfasando la pantalla. El contenido igual es bastante bueno y completo, sobre todo si ya tienes cierto conocimiento del idioma. One of the few books to learn standard Arabic that can be read properly on Kindle, believe me, I have searched high and low and they are few and far between, most are books only in physical format or what is available for Kindle has a very small size of the Arabic script or the words are misplaced or "cutted" and it is a mess. Of course, the tables are read a little better on a Paperwhite than on a basic Kindle due to the size of the screen, so you don't have to enlarge it with your fingers and move the screen out of focus. The content is still quite good and complete, especially if you already have some knowledge of the language.