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104 of 105 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must-be for travellers going to Morocco, 27 Dec 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Lonely Planet: Moroccan Arabic Phrasebook (Paperback)
This book proved to be a lifesaver for me. It is extremely well set out, and sub-divided for ease of use. It includes sections that cover areas you are likely to come across on a day-to-day basis such as 'greetings', 'at the market', 'at the post office' and 'emergencies', to name but a few. But as well as useful phrases, it also gives a summary of the chapter explaining in more detail the way of life. For example, before the section on shopping, there is a paragraph covering the art of bartering, and before the 'eating out' section, Moroccan hospitality is explained so the reader is in the know when he arrives at the restaurant or the guest's house. As well as there being a transliteration of the Arabic script with an easy-to-use pronunciation guide to help you read it, the word is also written in Arabic alongside it, so if you find yourself, as I did, sitting next to some Moroccan kids in the town square desperately trying to pronounce a jumble of letters, then you can just as easily point to the Arabic word and get one of them to read it aloud for you. Another thing I found particularly helpful is that the text is in two colours making it that much easy to follow. The language used in the phrasebook is specific to Morocco, and there are also small sections in French (one of the official languages of Morocco), and Berber (a local dialect spoken mainly in the mountain regions). For the more advanced, there is a section covering grammatical points and a brief outline of the structure of verbs. At the end there is a basic English-Moroccan Arabic dictionary and a comprehensive index. Just don't make the same mistake as I did...I only discovered this handy, pocket-sized phrasebook when I went in search of it in an American bookshop in the middle of Rabat, the capital of Morocco.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not much competition for this one, 11 Mar 2011
No shortage of phrasebooks for classical (Egyptian) Arabic, but this one is pretty much on its own, covering the Moroccan variant, plus appendices on Berber and French.
Having found Lonely Planet's book useful in Egypt, I anticipated this one would come in handy. However, between the page and the local ear in Tangier, something goes awry, and it's all a bit hit and miss. It's not clear whether it should be relied on for the whole of Morocco, but it might be more functional in Marrakesh or Fez (or in the hands of a more accomplished linguist than me). Including some French at the back, however, is a lifesaver, as it's widely spoken in Morocco.
Phrases are given in very small Arabic script, alongside transliterations, which you'll find more legible.
The book doesn't claim to be a dictionary, but if the phrase you want isn't in the section you hoped, there's a brief dictionary section towards the end. A searchable electronic version might be a good idea for the future?
As always, you'll win friends by attempting the local language (there are Moroccans who'll speak happily in a language of your choice, but they tend to be on the make). If the Arabic doesn't work for you, brush up on your French, and just pepper your conversation with occasional words, whether Moroccan or Egyptian.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
handy size phrasebook, 17 May 2010
This is a great little book; the only one I could find with Moroccan Arabic in. It has lots of phrases, much more than I needed for my seven week stay in Casablanca, though I did tend to use French rather than Arabic where possible. The only downside is that if you read Arabic script, it's a bit small, and I didn't think there was much use having the French section, as foreigners are much more likely to use French than Arabic anyway, so would probably have a whole French phrasebook if they weren't fluent.
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