vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4253 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian
| Message 1 of 7 16 September 2013 at 8:24pm | IP Logged |
Does anyone have any advice for Levantine Arabic resources? A lot of sources seem to be for MSA or Egyptian.
Which, makes me quite sad as I'd love to use Michel Thomas to brush up on my Arabic, but I know that Levantine
has some grammatical features that differ. I'm assuming FSI is really one of the better resources I can hope for - it's
just so boring for me.
I have a whole handmade book of Levantine Arabic at home that I collected while living there, but unfortunately I
don't have access to it right now!
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Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5189 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)
| Message 2 of 7 16 September 2013 at 9:05pm | IP Logged |
If you like LR GLOSS is excellent.
Pimsleur Eastern Arabic if you are a beginner.
syrianarabic.com if you like grammar.
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vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4253 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian
| Message 3 of 7 16 September 2013 at 9:54pm | IP Logged |
Also, for anyone stumbling here, I was browsing my university library today and I came upon a book called "Eastern
Arabic: An Introduction to Palestinian Arabic" by Frank A. Rice and Majed F. Sa'id. I've only been sitting with it for a
few minutes, but it looks very promising. The biggest downside is it's focused on SPOKEN arabic, and it's written
entirely in transilleration. In my case that's OK as I have Arabic speaking friends who can write it in Arabic script (or
correct my attempts), but that could be a deal breaker for others.
I can also vouch for Pimsleur Eastern - as I've used it before to good results.
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Jappy58 Bilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 4637 days ago 200 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Guarani*, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi), Arabic (Written), French, English, Persian, Quechua, Portuguese Studies: Modern Hebrew
| Message 4 of 7 17 September 2013 at 5:16pm | IP Logged |
Andrew C mentioned some great resources (I especially recommend GLOSS and syrianarabic.com).
Others:
Colloquial Palestinian Arabic
An excellent course, and it employs Arabic script as well for those who have background in
MSA. You'll have to go to the Alucen Learning Website to get the audio, however.
Popular Proverbs: An Entrance to Palestinian Culture (also from Alucen Learning)
Not really a course, but once you get to an intermediate level, it is fascinating to learn about this aspect of the
culture.
Shou fi ma fi?: Intermediate Levantine Arabic (can be found on Amazon)
A great course.
CultureTalk is nice, but not necessarily geared
towards beginners.
Living Arabic: A Comprehensive Introductory Course (on Amazon as well)
Great, but can be difficult for autodidactic students. It focuses on both MSA and Levantine.
EDIT: I couldn't get all the links to work.
Edited by Jappy58 on 17 September 2013 at 5:23pm
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daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7143 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek
| Message 5 of 7 17 September 2013 at 6:49pm | IP Logged |
Another set of materials for the Levantine dialect which seems to get very good reviews on Amazon is the four-book "Speaking Arabic" set published by Minerva Publishing House in Jerusalem.
You can see the set described, along with audio samples and PDF samples of the books, at their website here: http://www.speaking-arabic.com/index
The materials can be ordered via Amazon (where you can read users' reviews) or via Ebay. I haven't used them, but I do see generally positive comments on them, and so thought I would throw them into the mix as another option. (I think this set focuses on the spoken language, and is all in transcription.)
They also publish the Olive Tree Arabic-English dictionary for this dialect.
However you decide, good luck with your studies.
Edited by daristani on 17 September 2013 at 6:51pm
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vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4253 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian
| Message 6 of 7 17 September 2013 at 7:24pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for these resources!
For others checking out this thread I've also heard good things about these guys:
http://www.syrianarabic.com/index.html. I just downloaded the sample yesterday, and was relatively
impressed by it. I may choose to buy it - i just wish I could print the book without it costing an arm and a leg.
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Baracuda Groupie United States Joined 5804 days ago 53 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Russian, German
| Message 7 of 7 22 September 2013 at 3:26am | IP Logged |
You might check this DLI Syrian Arabic course: https://jlu.wbtrain.com/sumtotal/language/
DLI%20basic%20courses/Syrian%20Arabic/
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