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Teach Yourself: Read/Write Arabic Script | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4306 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 1 of 1 04 December 2015 at 10:21pm | IP Logged |
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A review of Read and Write Arabic Script by Mourad Diouri (Teach Yourself, 2011)
This is a shockingly edited book. I will however give it that it did what it said on the tin. With its help, I was able to learn how the script works and even it's rough phonetic inventory. I like how it lowers its scope to simple writing and reading topics and didn't try to pack too much into one volume. With nothing other than its pages as a guide, I have managed to do what it promised I would be able to do when I finished. In addition, it is written with an enthusiasm that draws you into what is, on the face of it, a daunting first step. However mistakes and confusing editorial choices abound. For example on page XXXIV it describes the "fatha" vowel as being pronounced: "/a/ as in "mat"; /e/ as in "but"; /ae/ as in "cat." I get the impression that Diouri is pronouncing "mat" with a longer vowel than "cat" and the word "but" something like "bet." In any case it's unclear if he means to distinguish 3 possible sounds or 2, since there are 3 sounds in slanty brackets, /a/ /e/ and /ae/, but only 2 sounds in the English exemplars: "cat/mat" and "but." On the next page he says that the "kasra" vowel has either the value of the vowel in "hit" or the vowel in "ship". That is, the exact same value, which he again transcribes in two different ways: "/i/" or "/e/". Confusing, and that's the very first lesson. Later, there is a mistake with the arabic script translations of anglacized renderings. On page XLII and XLIII there are three occurances of the word "nunation" with 3 different arabic translations. It is that he has not edited these occurances of "nunation" into their specific category: "double fatha," "double damma," and "double kasra." On page 149, the two sounds "ta'" and "t'" are not distinguished by the horizontal line under the latter, which is indicative of many omissions of these emphatic markers, which are crucial in the word being understood properly. For example the word "saydaliyyah" is printed as just "saydaliyyah" on 143. These mistakes do not mean much by themselves, but these confusions accord with the general sense that one had to search very carefully between the lines to extract the useful information at each stage. I mean this literally, since the print of the arabic script is sometimes so small that you must peer so hard as to see the dots of the ink on the page, while checking under a word to see if a "kasra" or dot is present. Even having read it several times, I still don't know what a "doubling" of a consonant is exactly supposed to describe, and it's not for want of due attention to its description (XLV: "a strong emphasis on the consonant being doubled" "the "d" in "modernity", but contrast page 144: "dad is another mpahtic sound... like the emphatic counterpart of dal... like in the word "daunting"). I did not read it linearly but rather read the book several times through, each time stopping a little longer to copy more examples by hand. The linear progression of the book is slightly pedantic, for example showing the combination of every consonant character with every possible vowel, and I think that most would prefer a chapter structure which slowly elevated the sophistication of the writing tasks as a whole, rather than each time elevating from simple to complex for that given consonant. For example the scary-looking "other calligraphic styles" sections and the "visual arabic" sections, which appear in each chapter regarding that given consonant, which show real photographs of shop signs and brand logos, could have been saved up for a satisfying final chapter.Some recorded material would have been nice too, in this age of websites and cheap hosting (the book was first published in 2011). All that said, this was my introduction to the Arabic language, and it's not nice to insult your teachers when you are so ignorant. The book shows a lot of effort to engage and is successful in making an intimidating foreign language approachable, with homely examples that would satisfy Iguamanon's "multi track approach." 1 person has voted this message useful |
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