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Arabic L/R Resources ??

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Doitsujin
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 Message 1 of 9
09 July 2010 at 6:28pm | IP Logged 
I've trying for quite some time to find some Arabic resources for Listening/Reading. So far I only found a web site of a guy in Kuwait who has created Arabic audio-books for some novels. Of course, as fate would have it, he picked novels for which I couldn't find any translations into Western European languages.
I know that some of Nagib Mahfuz's novels are available as bilingual books, but I'm not really a big fan of his books.
Has anybody succeeded in doing Arabic L/R?


Edited by Doitsujin on 09 July 2010 at 6:29pm

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Cetacea
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 Message 2 of 9
09 July 2010 at 8:30pm | IP Logged 
On the website you provided, the guy read "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown, so I guess you can buy the novel in Arabic and English, and practice L/R.

I know several good teachers ( but not professional readers) who might be able to read a book or two for a fee. But there is so little interest in Arabic L/R that I doubt it's going to be worth the effort.

My first vote for Arabic L/R would be Taha Hussein's The Days I, II, III. Great great story, standard language, much easier to understand than Nagib Mahfuz.
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Volte
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 Message 3 of 9
09 July 2010 at 8:44pm | IP Logged 
Cetacea wrote:
On the website you provided, the guy read "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown, so I guess you can buy the novel in Arabic and English, and practice L/R.

I know several good teachers ( but not professional readers) who might be able to read a book or two for a fee. But there is so little interest in Arabic L/R that I doubt it's going to be worth the effort.

My first vote for Arabic L/R would be Taha Hussein's The Days I, II, III. Great great story, standard language, much easier to understand than Nagib Mahfuz.


There's a lot more interest than you'd think. I'm interested; two friends of mine are very interested. We're all just aware of the current state of things, and hence usually quiet.

If there was a sufficient amount of Arabic L-R material for stories I liked, I'd devote a few weeks to Arabic in a heartbeat.

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Cetacea
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 Message 4 of 9
09 July 2010 at 9:48pm | IP Logged 
The reason there are so few Arabic Audio books out there is because 1. Arabs in general read very little. An UN survey stated that an average Arab reads six minutes or four pages of literature per year. 2. Out of those who read, very few are interested in audio books. 3. Publishers don't bother with audio books because they don't make business sense.

Volte, are you interested enough to pay for L/R recording? I might be able to find people who can read, but it won't be for free though.
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Volte
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 Message 5 of 9
09 July 2010 at 10:58pm | IP Logged 
Cetacea wrote:
The reason there are so few Arabic Audio books out there is because 1. Arabs in general read very little. An UN survey stated that an average Arab reads six minutes or four pages of literature per year. 2. Out of those who read, very few are interested in audio books. 3. Publishers don't bother with audio books because they don't make business sense.

Volte, are you interested enough to pay for L/R recording? I might be able to find people who can read, but it won't be for free though.


If it's literature I like, high quality both in Arabic and in translation to a language I read well, and the people are excellent readers, yes. I can't assess the first, and the third requires a lot of skill, as well as being somewhat subjective.

Finding people to read for money isn't a problem; finding people who will do it well is somewhat harder.

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Doitsujin
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 Message 6 of 9
10 July 2010 at 12:36am | IP Logged 
Cetacea wrote:
On the website you provided, the guy read "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown, so I guess you can buy the novel in Arabic and English, and practice L/R.

Good idea, but I've already read "The Lost Symbol" in English and didn't like it. I have both Arabic and English copies of "The Da Vinci Code" and might read them some day.

But since I've just finished the second and last volume of Ihsan Abd-Al-Quddus's book "لا شيء يهم" I'll probably continue with his somewhat controversial book "أنا جرّة" for which a selfmade Arabic audio book and a movie exist.

It really is a pity that audio-books never caught on in the Middle-East. They have so many great voice talents and none of them is put to use to create professional audio-books. I guess this might also be a copyright issue, because I remember having read somewhere that the estate of Abd-al-Quddus couldn't prevent a Saudi publishing company from publishing censored versions of his books.

Cetacea wrote:

But there is so little interest in Arabic L/R that I doubt it's going to be worth the effort.

I'd beg to differ. It's too bad that there's not more interesting material available that helps people to expand their vocabulary.

Cetacea wrote:

My first vote for Arabic L/R would be Taha Hussein's The Days I, II, III. Great great story, standard language, much easier to understand than Nagib Mahfuz.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check it out.


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Quabazaa
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 Message 7 of 9
10 July 2010 at 4:17am | IP Logged 
Well there's no English translation but I am loving رجل المستحيل / The Impossible Man by نبيل فاروق / Nabil Farouk ‎for which I found some audio (seems to be a home made audio, but I really like the reader's voice). For those who don't know the protagonist is a sort of Egyptian James Bond :)

I have also seen that audiobooks do exist in Arabic for popular novels such as Harry Potter, rather expensive for me though...

Keep the recommendations coming! Thanks especially for the Taha one, looks very interesting

Edited by Quabazaa on 10 July 2010 at 4:25am

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Volte
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 Message 8 of 9
10 July 2010 at 4:58am | IP Logged 
Quabazaa wrote:
Well there's no English translation but I am loving رجل المستحيل / The Impossible Man by نبيل فاروق / Nabil Farouk ‎for which I found some audio (seems to be a home made audio, but I really like the reader's voice). For those who don't know the protagonist is a sort of Egyptian James Bond :)

Keep the recommendations coming! Thanks especially for the Taha one, looks very interesting


That sounds quite interesting, thanks for the information!

Quabazaa wrote:

I have also seen that audiobooks do exist in Arabic for popular novels such as Harry Potter, rather expensive for me though...


Where? Do you know any reputable online shops that sell them, or other ways of buying them?



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