
Title | : | Conversational Arabic Quick and Easy: Emirati Dialect, Gulf Arabic of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, UAE Arabic, and the United Arab Emirates |
Author | : | |
Rating | : | |
ISBN | : | - |
Language | : | English |
Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
Number of Pages | : | 72 |
Publication | : | Published October 30, 2015 |
Conversational Arabic Quick and Easy: Emirati Dialect, Gulf Arabic of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, UAE Arabic, and the United Arab Emirates Reviews
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Slightly better than the one about “Qatari” Arabic (which was actually mostly Iraqi) but still terrible. No consistent transliteration scheme renders the book utterly useless and he does nothing to explain the complicated consonant system of Emirati Arabic.
Vowels are written inconsistently so that there could be any number of ways of pronouncing “yom.” (Does it rhyme with ‘dome?’ ‘Dumb?’ ‘Doom?’ ‘Dom?’)
Language learning begins with comprehension, not with speaking. Rushing into a book like this, for a serious language learner, would only lead to confusion later. Not to mention how dreadful your accent will be if you pronounce these Arabic words as they are written here!
In addition, the book, like the other one I read by this author, had typos in both the English and the Gulf Arabic.
Much better books have been produced on Gulf Arabic dialects. -
***UPDATE: unfortunately my positive review must be retracted. I was under the impression that this book, while being a little artificial (by design) in its range of expression, at least offered the genuine article (in its audiobook version) regarding the pronunciation of the the dialect named in black and white on the very front of the book! This turned out to also be untrue, and though I am happy to have learned a little more Arabic in general, I am no longer sure that I have made any progress towards the specific Arabic spoken in the Emirates, and for that I am disappointed with the author and frankly sorry for ever recommending it.
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I had low expectations since this was not from a big publisher, and I was at first a little put off by the errors in English tense and pronunciation, but as far as content goes, this was exactly what I was looking for.
The book is composed of useful generalisable language chucks like "tell him that" "even if" "sometimes" "in that place" "at that time", "without", "still", "always" and so on. Grammar is explained casually, as and when necessary.
With the focus on very general function words and phrases like these it is - similar to the Michel Thomas method - easy to generate plausible sentences with minimal specific content. it gives the good advice of pushing this generative potential of the phrases in ones own mind, after assimilation.
I am myself a more advanced student who benefited from the audio materials in gaining a little more familiarisation understanding the most common phrases by hearing. The website has been slow to respond to my request for the advertised fre digital book, which I need for reference, but I have been happy with the purely audio copy all the same.