translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6917 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 1 of 49 21 December 2009 at 2:35am | IP Logged |
I do not know why the author has not published this book for sale on Amazon, etc., but it is simply the best Arabic textbook ever. I got my copy on E-bay.
The title is
All the Arabic You Never Learned the First Time - 524 pages.
It is extremely good and extremely fun and entertaining:
"The author of this text is a native English speaker born in the United States. He has been through the learning-Arabic grind in the University system in the States and he knows where you are coming from.
"...I am upset about the number of students who have had several years of Arabic and do not know the difference between an idaafa and a noun-adjective phrase. In fact, many students do not seem to know the difference between an idaafa and a French horn. The noun-adjective phrase will be taught in the next chapter. The French horn will not."
"...If you do not understand what an idaafa is, or do not understand the relationship of the words in an idaafa to each other, you will never understand Arabic above the level of a two year old, or of an American journalist."
"If you learn the material on the accusative presented in this lesson, you will know much of what you will ever need to know about case in Arabic. If you don't learn the material in this lesson, go study Spanish."
"Part III: The Little Words No One Ever Learns but Which are Very Important"
"
Edited by translator2 on 21 December 2009 at 2:36am
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stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5830 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin
| Message 2 of 49 21 December 2009 at 11:36am | IP Logged |
Do you have a link as a google search doesn't bring anything up?
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staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5695 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written)
| Message 3 of 49 21 December 2009 at 2:01pm | IP Logged |
Indeed.
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translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6917 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 4 of 49 21 December 2009 at 3:56pm | IP Logged |
That is the point I was trying to make. This is the best book for Arabic I have ever seen, but you cannot find it anywhere. The copy I have is spiral bound. I believe the person who wrote it was a professor who wrote the book for his students. I would gladly pay for another copy as mine is now torn and tattered from use.
The only internet reference I could find was this one:
All the Arabic You....
stelingo wrote:
Do you have a link as a google search doesn't bring anything up? |
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Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6468 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese
| Message 5 of 49 21 December 2009 at 4:24pm | IP Logged |
Who is the author and what are his affiliations? We should be able to get copies by contacting him, maybe even convince him to publish these materials.
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daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7142 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek
| Message 6 of 49 21 December 2009 at 4:27pm | IP Logged |
Based on Translator2's enthusiasm, I went to Bookfinder.com yesterday evening and searched for it. There were a couple of used copies for sale, of which I ordered one.
The only information provided on the origin of the book was that it was from the Defense Language Institute in 1997, so I speculate that it may possibly be in the public domain. If there's no copyright information in it, I assume that it can be copied and distributed freely. Not having seen it, though, that's just my speculation.
Also, if there should be any further identifying information on it, it might be possible to contact DLI to ask about it, or perhaps Fat-Tony or ANK47 could learn something about it?..
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translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6917 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 7 of 49 21 December 2009 at 5:17pm | IP Logged |
Thanks daristani. I truly hope you love this book as much as I do. Thanks also for the new book site.
I would really like to learn more about the author of this book - Jim Price.
Edited by translator2 on 22 December 2009 at 12:57am
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ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 7095 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical)
| Message 8 of 49 22 December 2009 at 4:53pm | IP Logged |
I've seen this book before. A friend of mine had it. I think maybe they used to give them out at DLI. I never asked him where he got it and he wasn't the type of person to go out and buy books. I read through it and it has the best explanations that I've seen. It describes difficult Arabic concepts in a way that make sense to English speakers. Native Arabs don't often realize the parts of the language that are hard for Americans, but this book definitely simplified some things.
One of the things that my teachers could never tell me what what all the connecting words like ف , اذا , على ان , اما meant. If I remember correctly there is a section in this book about words like that that explained them better than my teachers. It talks about the fatha, kasra, and damma a lot too from what I recall. I'm not too interested in that kind of thing as you can understand and be understood without them, but I know a lot of people are. I don't know where a person would get this book though.
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