Read and Write Arabic Script: A Teach Yourself Guide

by Mourad Diouri

Now learning non-Roman-alphabet languages is as easy as A-B-C! Read and Write Arabic Script will help you read and write simple Arabic. This book is a step-by-step introduction to the script that will enable you to read Arabic signs, notices, advertisements and headlines. Even if you think learning the script is a daunting prospect, this book will make it simple. The alphabet is introduced in stages and there's lots of practice of each new character before the next one is introduced. There are plenty of example words and phrases that are seen everywhere in any Arabic-speaking environment so you can familiarize yourself with the most common signs and directions. By the end of the book, you will be reading and writing simple Arabic with confidence and be prepared for your next trip to the Middle East or further study of the language.

Genres: Reference

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2011

Reviews

[Jonathan Widell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that teaches you an alphabet of a foreign language in one day cannot be that bad. Granted, this is not the first time I have tried to learn the Arabic alphabet but it is the first time I really "got" it and followed through with it till the end. I did not do the writing exercises. The book lumps letters together according to their skeletal forms (not a novel approach) and shows that they differ from each other according to the dots that are underneath or above them. And it is for you to figure out that when the script seems to get reduced to one muddled "worm", you can still make out the different letters by their dots. But here is by far the biggest shortcoming of the book: the print is so incredibly small that I am not exaggerating when I say I cannot differentiate between the two vowel sounds fatha and damma and the two dots of ta' and qaf. Of course, if you are already able to read unvoweled text this should not be a problem but this book is not meant for those who are. This is a major issue and takes away a lot of the fun that the book would otherwise be. Still worth the effort. Recommended. Just not highly recommended.

[Elf · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was great, was it perfect, no, but it did get me through the script alphabet in about a week, which was really the point. I recognised a few minor issues with pronunciation that myself and members of my family do (mixed Turkish and English) whereby the 'wrong' version of how letters/combinations of letters are pronounced have been written but nothing too difficult to work out (I still get 'ay' and 'ey' in a muddle in English myself so his using the same version I use was actually helpful to me, but I can't see it being a huge problem for anyone). The only really confusing bit was the a, e and ae being compared to mat, but and cat, but imagine it with a generic middle eastern accent and it makes enough sense to muddle through it. I liked having the self testing sections as well. The text is small in places so reading glasses at the ready if you struggle with that side of things! It could have benefitted from making the script a bit larger in places.

Overall I would definitely recommend this book, just not for speaking the language out loud (my next task!).

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is helpful, but I need more practice than this. Also, the print is very small, so trying to copy is difficult.

[Liam Porter · Rating 2 out of 5]

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."

[Fred Kohn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably this is a fine book for somebody very serious about learning Arabic, but it was just too intense for me. Especially daunting was the demonstration of Arabic script in various calligraphy styles. Perhaps I will return to this book later when I'm a bit more proficient.