Formal Spoken Arabic

Using a field-tested, non-grammar-based approach, this book teaches a standardized variant of spoken Arabic and introduces beginning students to standard Arabic orthography.

A textbook for learners who have previously studied, or are concurrently studying Modern Standard Arabic and Arabic script and phonology--for example college students who have studied written Arabic but find they are unable to talk informally with their Arab friends. The audio exercises on the disk are keyed to the text, and drill students on listening and speaking. The first edition was published in 1989. Annotation :2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

This Arabic language-learning classic is now enhanced with a bound-in CD of MP3 files. Designed to provide beginners in Arabic with maximum linguistic and cultural exposure in a short period (about 100 hours of contact time), this book consists of sixteen lessons with dialogs and exercises dealing with day-to-day scenarios: greeting people, getting a taxi, making phone calls, asking directions, discussing the weather, and effectively communicating with police and duty officers. The lessons help the reader to navigate situations at gas stations, marketplaces, restaurants, and in their own households. Formal Spoken Arabic (FSA) is a kind of lingua franca that is more natural than speaking Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the literary form of the language. FSA uses the shared features of the various urban colloquial dialects, defaulting to Levantive (terms common to Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan) where the spoken dialects diverge. Each lesson includes cultural notes on American-Arab interactions, notes on learner strategies for managing Arabic conversations with a limited amount of language, and grammar explanations in clear, non-technical language. Although the main dialogue for each lesson is presented in Arabic script, transcriptions are used to accelerate spoken performance. The FAST Course includes grammatical explanations, English-Arabic and Arabic-English glossaries, appendices listing common idioms, courtesy expressions and other useful terms, instructor's notes, and drills aided and accompanied by the CD. Originally created for diplomats, this is an expanded and enhanced edition of a work originally developed by the U.S. State Department as a six-week intensive, or "FAST" (Familiarization and Short-Term) course, and is easily adaptable for students in Middle East area studies. Travelers heading for posts in the Arab world who quickly need to gain a basic ability to converse in day-to-day situations will find Formal Spoken Arabic FAST Course an invaluable companion.

An in-depth investigation of a kind of spoken Arabic where speakers combine features from standard Arabic and the vernacular, producing 'mixed styles' - which show certain patterns of distribution, but also variable usage across speakers. The framework represents a comparative sociolinguistic perspective.

The first comparative study of the syntax of Arabic dialects, chosen for their distinction. Based upon natural language data recorded in Morocco, Egypt, Syria and Kuwait, this study takes an analytical approach, combining insights from discourse analysis, language typology and pragmatics.

Este libro proporciona un marco teórico y diversas pautas para aplicar la dialectología a la enseñanza, situándose en el ámbito de la lingüística aplicada. El desafío radica en llevar la dialectología más allá de la investigación descriptiva. ¿Por qué hay que promocionar el árabe hablado? ¿Cómo pueden los alumnos convertirse en hablantes? ¿Podemos diseñar plantillas morfológicas aplicables a diferentes variedades? El trabajo responde a todo ello a través de sus siete capítulos, y proporciona cuatro planes didácticos basados en teorías e investigaciones actualizadas.