Standard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course

by Eckehard Schulz, Günther Krahl, Wolfgang Reuschel

This book presents a comprehensive foundation course for beginning students of written and spoken Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), providing an essential grounding for successful communication with speakers of the many colloquial varieties. This long-established and successful text has been completely revised with the needs of English-speaking learners especially in mind, and will prove invaluable to students and teachers alike.

Genres: Language

654 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2000

Reviews

[Marc Adler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best Arabic language textbook out there. Skips the hand-holding and gets right to the heart of language-learning: vocab and grammar. Lots of both.

Haven't actually finished it, but want it off my "current-reading shelf."

[Jonathan Jonsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense and uncompromising, it demands a good knowledge of grammar, but rewards you with tons and tons of information. Not really for autodidacts, it's made for a classroom and many of the exercises have no answers or lack vowel markings. Much of the vocabulary has to do with politics, which is great for us who study the region, but probably not if you want to learn a more casual language - but in that case, focusing on a dialect may be beneficial. Simply put, not for everyone, but for its target audience, it's the best book out there.

[lixy]

This book seems comprenhensive and heavy (and not what I used in either my elementary or intermediate MSA course.) It also seems extremely dry and tedious going, for the student; I can imagine it could be really good taught by an excellent teacher.

So far, my two favorite things about it:
-TONS of tables in the back with written out lists, fully vocalized, of the "sick" verbs and the polarized numbers! The book is worth it for this alone (I hear Schulz's plain grammar book has those too.)
-the final exercise in the book finally shows a glimpse of (very dry, germanic) humor. Here is it in full (and I hope someday to be able to actually translate it!):

Translate into Arabic:
By now I have learned the Arabic alphabet, equational and verbal sentences, strong and weak verbs, the jussive, the patterns of the verb, singular and sound and broken plural, the Idafa, the active and passive voice, the Arabic numbers, the infinitve, the Elative, conditional and exceptive sentences and the accusative. I have also learned many words and read texts about Arab history and Islam, politics, the economy, oil agriculture, the desert, sports and Arabic proverbs etc. I have played a lot of roles in the dialogues and I also had to write letters and my curriculum vitae in Arabic.
By now, I know that it is possible to learn this language if you always attend the lectures, and ifyou do all your homework. I also learned how to apologize if I was sometimes unable to attned because the train was late, or because my father was celebrating his fiftieth birthday for the fifth time.
I know some Arabic proverbs, too, e.g:
If the cat is not at home, the mice start playing.
Love is blind.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
The son of a duck is a good swimmer.
However, I didn't learn Arabic invectives (شتِيمة ج شَتائمُ)and curses (لَعنَة ج لَعَنَات). I must ask my teacher about this before the final examinations in order to know at least some of them in case I need them after the examinations.
Now I hope to succeed in the final examinations.

[Misha · Rating 5 out of 5]

good