Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6659 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian)
| Message 1 of 4 27 March 2012 at 7:16pm | IP Logged |
Has anyone tried the Kallimni Arabi series? It looks good because it offers five levels of books in Egyptian Arabic. Most courses in colloquial Arabic do not offer that much. Do you think that going through these books is enough to get one familiar with the Egyptian dialect?
There is one caution though, which is that the vast majority of the book is written in Arabic, so one needs some MSA reading skills to navigate through it. Has anyone tried these books out?
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translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6917 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 2 of 4 27 March 2012 at 7:26pm | IP Logged |
I think these books are much better:
Kalaam Gamiil: An Intensive Course in Egyptian Arabc
Kullu Tamaam
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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 3 of 4 27 March 2012 at 9:42pm | IP Logged |
I am working through Kallimni 'Arabi Bishweesh, the first book in the series. I am up to Chapter 8 of 10. I like the book a lot, although it is not ideal for self study. The recordings are very good, the speakers have pleasant voices, there are lots of dialogues and expressions and verbs are also recorded. I particular like the fact they have recorded the verbs in the different forms, in both affirmative and negative. This has helped me get accustomed to the prefixes, suffixes and movable stress which is very different from Indo-European verb forms.
Each chapter presents a reasonable amount of vocabulary without overloading the student. A lot of the vocab is revisited in later chapters, which I think is good. Most of the book is in Arabic script, however the dialogues are also printed at the end of each chapter in transliteration, and there is a vocab section at the back of the book, also in transliteration. Grammar is generally presented in table form, with minimal explanation in Arabic. So far, with my basic knowledge of MSA, this has not been a problem.
Some of the drawbacks: Some exercises aren't suitable for independent students. For others I am unable to work out what I'm supposed to do, as instructions are in Arabic. But I still get plenty out of the course just working through the dialogues. Not all new vocab is given in the back, so I have to use other sources or online forums, but again no big deal up to now. The vocab section at the back is arranged by lesson, so it is not straight forward finding a word you have forgotten.
I have also purchased the next volume, Kallimni 'Arabi. Some of the topics of the first book are revisited but treated in more depth and with much longer dialogues. There are plenty of diagrams and tables presenting grammar and word stress. And again verb forms and other grammatical features are recorded. The only English in this book is in the vocab section at the back. No transliteration for the dialogues. But now I'm familiar with the format of the series, I don't see this being a problem.
I also own Kullu Tamaan. I think this is a useful book as a reference grammar as explantions are in English and are fairly detailed. There is also a useful Eng-ECA/ECA-Eng glossary at the back. However there is much less audio and after the first few lessons you are overloaded with new vocabulary.
Translator2, I'd be interested in knowing more about Kalaam Gamiil, and how it compares to Kallimni.
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Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6659 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian)
| Message 4 of 4 28 March 2012 at 12:29am | IP Logged |
I am also interested to learn more about what Kalaam Gameel is like.
"Not all new vocab is given in the back, so I have to use other sources or online forums, but again no big deal up to now."
I have not used the following dictionary, but it might be helpful if there are any words not found in the glossary since it covers Egyptian/Syrian Arabic.
Egyptian and Syrian (Hippocrene Concise Dictionary
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