Egyptian Arabic: Easy Stories With English Translations (1)

Egyptian Arabic Easy Stories With English TranslationsThis is a must-have for those who want to learn and/or improve their knowledge in the study of the Egyptian Arabic. This challenging collection of stories has been designed from beginners to high intermediate learners of the most spoken dialect of Arabic.This harmonious dialect, which totals 64.5 million of native speakers, is the most widespread regional dialect of the Arab world, and the most popular Arabic dialect. Egyptian Spoken Arabic is widely understood throughout the Arab world, and as a result, it is usually chosen as the spoken dialect taught to students of Arabic as a foreign language.However, due to the fact of the staggering lack of teaching aids for learning spoken Arabic dialects, in this case, the Egyptian Arabic, this book constitutes an invaluable resource to improve this particular language.The book improves reading comprehension skills, and builds on the vocabulary of the spoken vernacular of Egypt. It is divided in different units of written stories that progress in length and difficulty. Each unit has a list of vocabulary words and a multiple-choice test as a reading comprehension skill at the end of each lesson.I had enough of a surprise when I realized that the book has an incredible advantage over other books that teach Arabic dialects. First, it is written in the Arabic alphabet, so it means, it doesn’t have the Romanization of the texts, which is the use of the Latin Alphabet to represent the Arabic sounds, along with numerals that represent sounds that do not exist in other languages that are not Arabic.This feature represents a huge step forward for the students, since they have to brush up their reading skills in the targeted language, that is, they need to strive and make an effort, in order to read Egyptian Arabic using the Arabic scripts. The second benefit of the book consists of the English translation of the unit contents at the end of book. So, you definitely will have no difficulty when it comes to translating the texts.It is to my belief that this book is so original and instructional, that I suggest the author, Donovan Nagel, to develop a series of books of Egyptian Dialect, similar to this one, in which this might be the first book of a conventional collection. My compliments to the author for writing such an amazing volume. I highly recommend this item to everyone interested in learning the Arabic language in order to own and enjoy this extraordinary work of art.

I have worked diligently through 9 stories of the 12 in this book, listening to their audio supplements and getting used to Egyptian vocabulary and structure all the while. I had already studied MSA, but was not particularly advanced, more of an "advanced beginner". Utilizing this book with a tutor - who asks me questions in Arabic to review the stories - has helped enormously.The only confusion I've had with the book is their choice of vocabulary list after each story. They often provide synonyms rather than the actual word/s used in the story, which is odd, and not very helpful for students working through the book at my level.

I like everything about this book, including the audio files which really bring the content alive! I am an American who has been to Egypt several times and lived for extended periods; and I am always looking for new resources to use with my students of Egyptian Arabic. This is an excellent addition to my library.

This is definitely not for a beginner. I do like the challenge but the way this book is advertised makes you think it’s a beginners book. The way the vocabulary section is written after the stories is confusing. It’s difficult to figure out the meanings. I took MSA for two years and I wanted to learn some dialect. I think you run into the same situation as the kallimni books. If you have a teacher I think these would be good as beginner. Trying to teach yourself out of this book is frustrating. This should really be advertised as intermediate.

This is one of my best resources that I have found for learning to read arabic stories, specifically for Egyptian Arabic, for the absolute - beginner.Some of the academic books I found are pricy and are fun to provide additional multimedia to keep things exciting but have you learning words like united nations, which let’s be honest is not very efficient.I practice by reciting a few pages at a time and discussing the sentence structure and vocabulary over FaceTime with a bilingual Egyptian native of Cairo. We do this daily 1-2 hours with the book. It will take beginners a long time to finish this book, it is helpful.While I am 100% satisfied with the pace of learning because of this book, I would like to add that many elements of this arabic writing are more Levantine than Egyptian Arabic.Also, the short stories in the beginning revolve around esoteric vocabulary such as ‘high heels’.Overall, I highly recommend this book.

It is helpful to have the audio when learning to read in Arabic.

I have gotten through the first five stories of this book. I've learned a lot of vocabulary words and grammatical structures. The book includes Egyptian stories written in MSA with vocalization. In the back, you will find an English translation of each story. After every story, there are a few pages for you to write notes. Being that I have a background in Modern Standard Arabic, I decided to use this book as a way to learn Egyptian Arabic. It is an invaluable resource for individuals seeking to learn Egyptian Arabic with a foundation in Arabic script and grammar. This book is not for recent beginners of MSA or any dialect. My biggest gripe with this book actually comes from the audio portion. The narrator reads extremely fast, which should be expected. When I listen to authentic resources in Egyptian Arabic, the speaker tends to speak fast. My suggestion for the author is to find a way for users to be able to slow the original audio track down. The narrator reads so fast that it is not unusual for me to lose my spot as she reads. Despite this, I highly recommend this book for those of you desiring to learn EA.