Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (Czech Institute Monographs)

click here for more details, find new or used items	Frantisek Ondras New from £23.27 Used from £23.51 Pages: 250 (Paperback) ISBN: 8086277429 Pub: Czech Institute of Egyptology Charles Univers Pub date: 2005-10-31 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1422378

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Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (0/0 people found this helpful)

This is a book written by people with a profound knowledge of colloquial Egyptian Arabic as a language and of its use within the specific society.
It has been very carefully proof read so that very few mistakes remain. There are still one or two which might cause occasional difficulty: an example is on page 83 fourth line down where SuRa is given as a verb meaning "to understand" when it is in fact a noun meaning "picture" or "photo". There then follows SaWWar with the meaning "to explain". The usual meaning will be "to photograph" as is correctly stated on page 84 line 18. Such mistakes are very rare.
The recording is very good. There are just two voices, a man and a woman, both beautiful speakers with the ability to strike the appropriate speed of delivery. Slowish in the early lessons and quicker in the later ones. It is a little strange in an Egyptian context to find a woman taxi driver inviting a single man into her cab. It is also strange to find a man using masculine pronouns and verb endings to a woman.
The problem with the materials is the audience for such a course. I am someone who has studied Arabic, both written and the colloquial, so that beyond pure Egyptianisms there is little that is strange to me. I think there is too much material for the ordinary student to master. There is a mass of vocabulary and a great deal of grammar. The usual student will require a preliminary course before embarking on Ondras' course. It is still a very valuable piece of work.

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