Focus on Contemporary Arabic (Conversations with Native Speakers) | 
|  | | | Title: | Focus on Contemporary Arabic (Conversations with Native Speakers) | | Author: | Shukri Abed | | Publisher: | Yale University Press | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 10 September, 2006 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0300109482 / 9780300109481 | | List Price: | $39.95 | | You Save: | $4.00 | | Amazon Price: | $35.95 | |
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| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
"Focus on Contemporary Arabic" is the fifth volume in the "Conversations with Native Speakers" series, which strives to offer pioneering multimedia language materials to students at the intermediate and advanced levels. These programmes consist of a slim, user-friendly student textbook and an accompanying DVD showing interviews with a variety of native speakers filmed in the target language. These speakers represent all areas of the cultural spectrum, offering a realistic view of the diversity of the native-speaking populations of the language in question. The interviews on the DVD broach an assortment of socially and culturally relevant topics and present students of the language with a glimpse into the complexity of both the language and the culture.
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Customer Reviews:
• Please Make Available For Cd And/or Mp3 11 December, 2008
I have to fully agree with "Eastern Approaches" on this. I have been trying like the dickens to get this either on my ipod or as a CD to listen in my car. For me, ipod is best because I usually fall asleep listening to language lessons (odd I know, but it's effective). I STRONGLY URGE Yale University Press to make it available on cd or ipod. I too would purchase it again just for that.
All that being said, I have studied Arabic for 11 years. I own or have previewed just about every Arabic (among other languages) course book and dictionary you can find. Without a doubt, this is the best Arabic language tool I have come across yet! It is not for beginners, which is a good thing. One of the toughest and most bitter pill an Arabic learner has to swallow is the fact that Arabic contains so many spoken dialects. I attended the Defense Language Institute in the 90s and even the teachers there were hesitant to speak everyday spoken Arabic because the the focus was on MSA; something they didn't always feel comfortable speaking.
Hopefully Dr. Abed comes out with a follow-up or a revised version.
To make this product or a future product even better I would suggest the following:
1. Make available in CD and/or MP3 format as mentioned earlier
2. List the new vocabulary either alphabetically at the end or beginning of the lesson. Or... list new vocabulary in order of appearance after each segment. I usually highlight the Arabic words in the text and then highlight the English in the vocab list to practice understanding and producing new words.
3. List every word, as a dictionary of sorts (except the most basic words) at the very end of the book. This would help a lot. Dr. Hill does this for his Persian language books and it really helps.
The above are really minor critiques, as the book is very, very helpful. If you are a student of Arabic and want something more advanced, you have to buy this, bila shak!
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2ZSGKEREER7DU
• Effective Learning Material 09 February, 2008
Hi...I used this book for my intermediate/advanced class of the Arabic Lang. for the whole semester. My students really liked it as it was developing from subject to subject and from level to a higher level. They enjoyed the mixture of MSA and dialects within the authentic dialogues. I recommend this book for the teachers of the intermediate Arabic and for the learners of Arabic after they pass the basic level. The dvd has high quality pictures and the transition between chapters is well done. What my students and I have missed is the need for more covarage of dialects and dialogues that taken from the Arabic streets where people talk about real life issues.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1XK0TY7D4KCUK
• Great Material, Well-organized 19 October, 2008
There are tons of dialogues from different speakers, some of whom are very easy to understand and some of whom are a little more difficult. The book provides fully vowelled transcripts of all the dialogues. This is great practice for a lower-intermediate to intermediate student. Much better done that some of the other Arabic learning tools out there.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AJBSNWLSG8NZX
• Excellent 20 November, 2008
I agree with much of what was written by Mr.Cummings in this thread.
I would add that if you have the technical ability, it is very useful to extract the audio for CD and to play it in the car as you travel. (Note: I am not advocating piracy - just playing the audio from the DVD as you drive if you are able).
I've found that this was an excellent way to develop my ear training. Read the texts, watch the DVD (numerous times) and listen to the audio over and over whenever driving. It never gets tiresome but instead is revelatory the way you start to develop a better ear and make morphological connections in your own thinking. ("Ah, so that's why you use x word for x" etc)
By the way, I contacted Yale and asked whether they would consider releasing the segments for iPod download as videos or just audio. They said that they are considering it but it would be a way off. I hope they do so (I'll purchase it again to replace my rough job) and also that they release follow up editions on more complicated subject areas. This is a really excellent resource for self-study and I recommend it highly.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1A3MLMMRTLHJT
• !!!worthless!!! 18 September, 2007
!!!THIS BOOK IS UTTERLY WORTHLESS!!! WITHOUT AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THESE TEXTS ONE HAS TO GUESS AT WHAT MUCH OF THE ARABIC MEANS, OR WORSE YET, LEAVE IT INCOMPREHENSIBLE!!! BY THE TIME YOU REACH THIS STAGE OF ARABIC YOU CAN ALREADY GET TRANSCRIPTS OF ARABIC SPEECHES ON YOUTUBE AND THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION FOR FREE!!! WHAT WERE THE AUTHORS THINKING??? ALL THEY DID WAS TRANSCRIBE SOME ARABIC CONVERSATIONS - BARELY A SERVICE!!! DON'T BUY THIS BOOK!!!
- Reviewed by customer ID: AUXAPV021707G
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