Formal Spoken Arabic: Fast Course with MP3 Files (Georgetown Classics in Arabic Language and Linguistics) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Formal Spoken Arabic: Fast Course with MP3 Files (Georgetown Classics in Arabic Language and Linguistics)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Formal Spoken Arabic: Fast Course with MP3 Files (Georgetown Classics in Arabic Language and Linguistics). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Formal Spoken Arabic: Fast Course with MP3 Files (Georgetown Classics in Arabic Language and Linguistics) ReviewI have been using this book and cd for the past two weeks and have learned so much Arabic just from the first two lessons! I'm headed to Syria in a month and wanted to learn basics of the language so I can communicate with my in-laws. My husband is amazed at how much I've learned; he says the pronunciation is for Saudi Arabia, but I'll be understood fine when I go to Syria. The mp3 files are terrific, though I miss some of the nuances when I'm in my car (I hear them fine in a quiet environment or when I use headphones; initially I thought the phrase for "Keep the change" sounded a lot like "Hally Berry" - boy was I wrong!).
The way the mp3 files are arranged for each chapter is that first you hear a dialogue spoken in a regular fashion, then slowly so that you can repeat it after each speaker. You then have vocabulary from the dialogue (the list is basically every new word from the dialogue), then supplemental vocab to expand your knowledge. Then there are a few drills (listening comprehension) and grammar for the chapter. The dialogues are fairly easy to grasp if you listen to them repeatedly, and I don't feel overwhelmed by the amount of new words that I'm learning with each lesson.
The only problem is that the book is set up to use in a classroom setting, and unlike other language books I've used, there's no answer key to the lessons. Most of the answers are directly from the dialogue and you can figure others out, but I've had to ask my husband for help with a couple of the questions.
In the end, I would highly recommend this if you're trying to learn Arabic. It's not an easy language to learn, but if you listen to the mp3s over and over, it really sinks in! It helps for me that the book uses English letters to spell out the words - I don't think I can learn the writing also at this time (the dialogue is also written in Arabic on the opposite page, though, if you do want to learn it that way). Being able to hear the dialogue and look at it in the book really helps things sink in well. I've even been able to throw in Arabic words during regular conversation with my husband without straining hard to think of a relevant word.
By the way, I tried using the In-Flight Arabic cd initially, but it was pretty worthless to me. It went really fast and the speakers would say things once, hardly giving you enough time to comprehend what they were saying before they moved on to the next word/phrase. They taught the numbers by "1, 2, 3" "4, 5, 6" and so on, and if you've never heard Arabic before, all the words just run together - aargh! I don't even know if you can buy that cd from Amazon.com (I got it through Audible.com), but please, don't waste your money on In-Flight Arabic if you don't have a clue about Arabic before you begin (like me!).Formal Spoken Arabic: Fast Course with MP3 Files (Georgetown Classics in Arabic Language and Linguistics) OverviewThis Arabic language-learning classic is now enhanced with a bound-in CD of MP3 files. Designed to provide beginners in Arabic with maximum linguistic and cultural exposure in a short period (about 100 hours of contact time), this book consists of sixteen lessons with dialogs and exercises dealing with day-to-day scenarios: greeting people, getting a taxi, making phone calls, asking directions, discussing the weather, and effectively communicating with police and duty officers. The lessons help the reader to navigate situations at gas stations, marketplaces, restaurants, and in their own households. Formal Spoken Arabic (FSA) is a kind of lingua franca that is more natural than speaking Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the literary form of the language. FSA uses the shared features of the various urban colloquial dialects, defaulting to Levantive (terms common to Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan) where the spoken dialects diverge. Each lesson includes cultural notes on American-Arab interactions, notes on learner strategies for managing Arabic conversations with a limited amount of language, and grammar explanations in clear, non-technical language.Although the main dialogue for each lesson is presented in Arabic script, transcriptions are used to accelerate spoken performance. "The FAST Course" includes grammatical explanations, English-Arabic and Arabic-English glossaries, appendices listing common idioms, courtesy expressions and other useful terms, instructor's notes, and drills aided and accompanied by the CD. Originally created for diplomats, this is an expanded and enhanced edition of a work originally developed by the U.S. State Department as a six-week intensive, or "FAST" (Familiarization and Short-Term) course, and is easily adaptable for students in Middle East area studies. Travelers heading for posts in the Arab world who quickly need to gain a basic ability to converse in day-to-day situations will find Formal Spoken Arabic FAST Course an invaluable companion.

Want to learn more information about Formal Spoken Arabic: Fast Course with MP3 Files (Georgetown Classics in Arabic Language and Linguistics)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now