Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, 26 Mar 2008
Despite several frustrating and unsuccessful attempts to learn languages at school, I was resigned to only ever speaking English. Having read the product description on this item stating that it used a unique method of teaching I decided to try it. After only one week of learning for just 20 minutes a day, I could already construct basic sentences. As the course went on it cleverly added words and ideas, so forming ever more complicated sentences came naturally. I cannot recommend this product highly enough, if I can learn Arabic using it anyone can!
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22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An effective, yet painless method, 14 Jan 2008
(I first posted this review on Jan 14, 2008, but it got deleted)
This is a very impressively effective method.
And it's definitely worth the money. It's actually a cheap method given the results.
I say this from the point of view of an "experienced amateur language learner". Over the last 4 years, I've learnt 3 Romance languages, I have revived and improved the German I had learnt at school, in addition to my mother language (French) and to English. I confess I have learnt some Arabic with Pimsleur's 2 levels for Syro-lebanese Arabic.
I could do this because 1) There are very smart rather painless methods that I discovered and used: Pimsleur and Assimil. 2) I had the time , mostly when driving calmy,or performing some brain-easy activities (running, walking the dog etc...) 3) The methods I used are so rewarding and effective that they prompted a crave for learning new languages. I can now have conversations (general and in my professional environment) in all 3 romance languages and German.
This lengthy introduction is not intended at boasting, but rather at making 2 points:
1) I think I now can identify a good language learning method when I try one.
And 2) there are methods that are very smart and make language learning very easy if you have the wish to learn and enjoy speaking foreign languages.
So far I considered Pimsleur the best to start with because as it's only audio, it's quite natural, and your pronunciation is based upon what you hear, not what you read. When you read foreign words, you read them with a brain that may have difficulties producing an appropriate pronunciation because it will interpret the reading according to your reading experience in your mother language. This is why so many French people pronounce English like Inspector Clouseau (actually worse since P Sellers stresses the words properly). Pimsleur is also very good because it brings you to constructing your own sentences based on other, different sentences. And it is a very quickly rewarding method, you soon realize you can actually speak the language. But thereafter, especially after the ideal Pimsleur method that comprises three 30 lessons levels , each intended 25 minutes, with one lesson a day (I did more, you do not have enough words and tenses to understand the language when immersed in th country. And at times it's quite awkward to identify the sounds and reproduce them. But although you lack words you can express basic needs and have simple conversations. After these usually 3 months, you need to expand your vocabulary a lot, which Assimil is very good at doing especially if you work as much as you can with the CDs. There you will memorise words and many idioms in context . You'll need the booklet to understand the text that you'll need to repeat while understanding it, while listening to the CDs, like an almost simultaneous echo, which some call "to shadow the speech". Well that's how it works best for me..
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But now I discovered this new "MICHEL THOMAS" Arabic foundation method, based on late Michel Thomas (MT) principles, and designed by a British teacher of Arabic helped by a native speaker of the Egyptian dialect.
THIS METHOD IS MUCH EASIER TO GO THROUGH THAN PIMSLEUR, and gives you more for your time and money. But it has the same huuuge advantage of being only audio (see details above.
The only problem was that only the Foundation course (8 CDs) was available at the time I did it, and remember longing for the "advanced" course" (March 2008) and the "vocabulary " course (2009 Inch ALlah).
But IN 8 CDS, THE ACHIEVEMENTS ALLOWED were REMARKABLE.
Well, my case is special since I had not started from scratch, having done Pimsleur's level one 1 year earlier and level 2 one month earlier in another Arabic dialect. But the Egyptian dialect is somewhat different.
The teaching is quite slow in purpose (I guess) so as not to put the learner under stress. It seems that the quiet environment created by the gentle pace and tone of the teachers, their nice and positive attitudes towards the students, all of this seems to be essential to open our minds and help us memorise and eventually speak. Well you realise this when later in the course you're asked to say something and you actually do say it.
Of course this basic course with it's 8 slow paced CDs does not teach you many words, less than a 30 lessons (15 CDs) of Pimsleur, but I think it's a more effective method for a difficult language like Arabic. I had to spend much more time on Pimsleur than 30 minutes per lesson for level 1, sometimes having to do the same lesson 3-4 times before I could pronounce /identify the words or sentences. In the MT program, it's way easier. And still you are led to build sentences on your own, being fed the bases earlier.
My impression is that those 8 CDs can be used without going again and again through the same "lessons". I did not need to listen more than once.
And after completing it you'll be much more at ease to further progress using either other methods or the aforementioned next steps of the program, pending for release.
I DEFINITELY RECOMMEND THIS "ARABIC FOUNDATION": if you want to learn Arabic it quite certainly is the best to start with and you'll see , it's not very difficult. Then you 'll probably find it easy to move on either with the "advanced course" and the vocabulary course later or with other methods.
RESERVATIONS:
1) I cannot speak from the point of view of a naive learner (from scratch). Nevertheless I found the method not boring at all and I did understand post hoc some details that had escaped me while doing the Pimsleur program.
I did try the Mandarin program from the same publisher, based on the same principles, and hence I'll know the value for the absolute beginner. An American would say it's an "awesome" course. Very impressive how you get out of it being able to construct sentences, with a limited vocabulary though. And believe me Chinese and Arabic are not difficult languages, when smartly taught. My feeling is that Arabic is more difficult than Chinese for the grammar, and Chinese more difficult to pronounce because of the tones. The Chinese writing remains a nightmare.
2) The choice of Egyptian. I think this is a good choice since many sources and Arabic speakers I know indicate that it's understood by almost all Arabs, mainly because so many TV series and films are from Egypt (Hollywood on Nile). Many methods teach you "Modern Standard Arabic". You never hear that Arabic spoken except maybe on TV news on international Arabic channels. I find it better to learn one of the dialects, either Egyptian or Lebanese/Syrian: all those are understood in Jordan, Irak and the gulf, and Egypt. Egyptian might be more understandable in Northern Africa for the reasons mentioned above. .
3) No teaching of the writing. So what? I don't care since I just want to communicate orally. Learning the writing would definitely slow down the pace of learning and make it more difficult. A good learning has to be rewarding so keep that for later, when you speak the language.
4)The 2 students in the course. Strange as it may seem I think they help. First, they have hesitations and make mistakes that you (I ) have or do. Second they help convey the positive empathy of the teachers onto you. This is supposed to ease the learning process in according to MT's principles. I do find the students helpful.
5) As you're exposed to only one speaker who speaks clearly and rather slowly, you are not prepared to understand a flow of Arabic at normal speed, and this is what expects you, because when Arabs will hear you speak well (you will, I think) , they will assume you understand as well as they hear you speak. This is also a problem with Pimsleur that facilitates a nice pronunciation, which exceeds the lower quality of our understanding. But you have to start somewhere and here again this MT Arabic Foundation I recommend wholeheartedly.
CONCLUSION
I think it's an excellent and cheap but effective method to start with. Very rewarding for the short duration it lasts. Hopefully the next levels will be as effective.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very good course, 28 Feb 2009
I heard an extract from this course on You Tube and I felt this was a good way to learn arabic, so I bought it. I already speak some arabic so it was more revision for me. You need a pretty good memory to use it but are in a position to go at your own pace and go over lessons so you will not get behind. To get the best out of it you need to sit down and use the pause button alot, repeating as you go along.
You need to bear in mind that it is Egyptian arabic and there are a number of differences from arabic spoken in other parts of the world.
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