Short Stories in Arabic for Intermediate Learners
Product ID: 168655671
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An unmissable collection of eight unconventional and captivating short stories for adult and young adult learners. "Olly's top-notch language-learning insights are right in line with the best of what we know from neuroscience and cognitive psychology about how to learn effectively. I love his work - and you will too!" - Barbara Oakley, PhD, Author of New York Times bestseller A Mind for Numbers Short Stories in Arabic for Intermediate Learners has been written especially for students from low-intermediate to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and most importantly - enjoyment! Mapped to B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference, these eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress when reading. What does this book give you? - Eight stories in a variety of exciting genres, from science fiction and crime to history and thriller - making reading fun, while you learn from a wide range of new vocabulary - Controlled language at your level, including the 1,000 most frequent words, to help you progress confidently - Authentic spoken dialogues, to help you learn conversational expressions and improve your speaking ability - Pleasure! It's much easier to learn a new language when you're having fun, and research shows that if you're enjoying reading in a foreign language, you won't experience the usual feelings of frustration: "It's too hard!" "I don't understand!" - Accessible grammar so you learn new structures naturally, in a stress-free way Carefully curated to make learning a new language easy, these stories include key features that will support and consolidate your progress, including: - A glossary for bolded words in each text - Full plot summary - A bilingual word list - Comprehension questions after each chapter As a result, you will be able to focus on enjoying reading, delighting in your improved range of vocabulary and grasp of the language, without ever feeling overwhelmed or frustrated. From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in Arabic for Intermediate Learners will make learning Arabic easy and enjoyable. Review: Great for intermediates - It’s very good especially when you combine it with the audio version. The only thing I would say to improve it would be to make the font size a little bit bigger. Otherwise it’s great for intermediates. Review: The glossary needs reworking - To determine which vocabulary words should go in the glossary, the author should have asked himself: which roots are difficult to find in the standard Hans Weir dictionary, i.e. roots that have several possibilities and take time to look up. Those roots he should have included in his glossary. Some easy roots like chabar in form 4, he includes in it. But he neglects to include some words that are difficult for an Intermediate Arabic learner. The main problem with an "intermediate" reader is rating the words in your stories by levels of difficulty. There are vocabulary lists that define beginning to advanced learners. If you make the read too difficult, you frustrate your customers, and if they are too frustrated, they might curse you (or bless you if they're not). These stories toddle somewhere between frustation and enjoyment. The author might dismiss my criticism by saying that I am not yet qualified to be rated intermediate. But I know that I am. It's not just vocabulary that could use refining, but some notes would have helped to define ambiguous passages, such as the first two words of page 31. Waqa'a has many meanings There are several possibilities to translate the first few words. Give us a note to guide us a little. Not anticipating intermediate problems is a kind of blindness on the part of the author. For my frustration, I rated this book down from five to three stars. In the end, my rating might be higher as my frustration subsides. But who likes to be frustrated when it's not necessary?
| Best Sellers Rank | #422,841 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #9 in African & Middle Eastern Literature #84 in Short Story Literary Criticism #124 in Middle Eastern Literature (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 97 Reviews |
M**H
Great for intermediates
It’s very good especially when you combine it with the audio version. The only thing I would say to improve it would be to make the font size a little bit bigger. Otherwise it’s great for intermediates.
S**T
The glossary needs reworking
To determine which vocabulary words should go in the glossary, the author should have asked himself: which roots are difficult to find in the standard Hans Weir dictionary, i.e. roots that have several possibilities and take time to look up. Those roots he should have included in his glossary. Some easy roots like chabar in form 4, he includes in it. But he neglects to include some words that are difficult for an Intermediate Arabic learner. The main problem with an "intermediate" reader is rating the words in your stories by levels of difficulty. There are vocabulary lists that define beginning to advanced learners. If you make the read too difficult, you frustrate your customers, and if they are too frustrated, they might curse you (or bless you if they're not). These stories toddle somewhere between frustation and enjoyment. The author might dismiss my criticism by saying that I am not yet qualified to be rated intermediate. But I know that I am. It's not just vocabulary that could use refining, but some notes would have helped to define ambiguous passages, such as the first two words of page 31. Waqa'a has many meanings There are several possibilities to translate the first few words. Give us a note to guide us a little. Not anticipating intermediate problems is a kind of blindness on the part of the author. For my frustration, I rated this book down from five to three stars. In the end, my rating might be higher as my frustration subsides. But who likes to be frustrated when it's not necessary?
T**S
Only useful if you can read Arabic without vowels/tashkil/harakat
The author sent out an email blast saying that even though this book says « for intermediate learners », that beginners could find it useful as well. This is patently untrue as the texts are not vowelized. If you are able to read mostly w/o harakat, then buy this book. If you are level A1-B1, don’t waste your money.
F**A
Perfect!
Once you have a good level of reading and reading comprehension, this book will boost the development of your repertoire.
フ**イ
辞書使うのは我慢してとにかく読み進めると…
留学先でのドタバタ劇、ミステリー風ドラマ、SFものなど全８話収録。各話とも三つの章で構成され、章ごとに要約、語句説明、練習問題がついています。英訳は載っていません。タシュキール（発音記号）もついていません。単語や表現、構文も学習者にとって重要と思われるものが繰り返し出てきて、自然と習得していくことができそうです。 「小説」として楽しめるかというと疑問ですが、ストーリー展開を興味をもって追っていくことができる内容なので、アラビア語学習者にとってはとてもいいリーディング教材ではないでしょうか。こんな学習者用のリーディング教材がもっと出版してくれたらどんなにいいか。 書名に「for Intermediate Learners」とあります。「中級」の基準はわかりませんが、ひと通り文法事項を学んだ上で、さらにある程度の単語力が必要なレベルだと思います。 読み進め方として、本書でも書かれている通り、少々わからない箇所があっても、辞書など引かずにとにかく章を最後まで読み通していくことが重要だと思います。それから要約を読み、もう一度、今度は辞書や章末の語句説明を参考にしながら精読していくとグッと理解が深まるように感じました。 わからない単語があると気になって、いちいち調べたくなるのですが、それだと時間がかかるし、何よりストーリーを楽しめません。わからない箇所があっても辞書を使うのを我慢して、推測しながらとにかくどんどん読み進めていくのがいいと思います（凝ったストーリーではないので十分推測できる）。辞書を使うのは一読後。そうする方が結果的に効率よく内容を理解できると感じました。 わからない単語が多すぎて、何が何だかさっぱりわからないという場合。残念ながらまだこの教材はまだ自らのレベルに合致していないということになりますかね。
A**Z
Excellent book for intermediate level arabic students
Really enjoyed the short arabic stories and the thing i liked about it the most was that it hasn't got any diacritical marks (tashkeel) on the arabic letters which is good because it makes you put your arabic grammar into use. There is a list of english translated words for the difficult arabic words at the back of the book which helps. Overall really good, very impressed and defenitely recommend it for those students who have studied arabic (at least have a good foundation and a variety of vocab).
C**N
Very useful
I haven't read it all yet. The structure of the book is really useful to learn Arabic. But an intermediate level is needed to follow the plot smoothly.
A**E
Great to understand
This is the first book with short stories that I actually like and understand well. Students of B1 or B2 will be able to follow easily. I was truly surprised that I was able to understand all the stories without looking up words (although I did not know many words). The unknown words were chosen in a way that it didn't inhibit the reading experience. Reading the same short story over and over will then enable the reader to understand the unknown words. I can absolutely recommend this reader!
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