Do you have years of MSA classes under your belt but felt discouraged and frustrated when you arrived in a Middle Eastern country and realised that you cannot understand most of the conversations?
Or are you already aware that practically nobody speaks MSA in their daily lives and desperately hope to avoid being caught in the above-mentioned situation?
Ever wish for a book that you can invest in and refer to it constantly as a guide?
But have yet to find a suitable book?
Luckily for all of us Levantine Arabic learners, that book does exist!
And that book is…..
The 101 Most Used Verbs In Spoken Arabic: Jordan & Palestine (Third Edition)
by Fridrik E.Tiedemann Jr.
My battered and well-used book
I’ve purchased it at the University Bookshop in Amman back in 2015 for 25JD. I have used it for both self-study and classroom-study.
If you’re learning the Spoken Levantine Arabic (amiyya), then I would highly recommend this book. It has truly been a great investment for me. Even after having studied all of the given verbs, I still found myself referring to it from time to time because of all the other bonuses in it.
Is the book suitable for you?
I would say that the book suits best for intermediate learners or those who can afford a teacher (or a dedicated Arab friend) to sit with you and study the book together. That being said, I would still recommend beginners to get it. And I’ll tell you why.
- The Verb Inflection Chart
The book provides pages and pages of the verb inflection chart for all 10 verb forms. And this is already a huge advantage for beginners as the chart helps you to get the pronunciation right from Day 1. The chart guides you on the inflection according to the verb forms.
In this way, each time you learn a new verb (and if you’re able to recognise its verb form) you would also know it’s inflection. For a beginner, this chart is extremely useful.
The conjugation table for the verb to lift/raise something (Verb Form I)
As you can see, the chart lists out all the inflection of the verb for all pronouns in both the present and past tense. In the last row, the changes in inflection are also provided when a pronoun is attached to the verb.
This means you’re pretty much covered when it comes to verbs. Learning the verbs, their inflections and conjugation all come in one package. You can’t do one without the other two.
And that’s why the chart comes in handy especially when you’re at the beginning of your Arabic learning journey.
- 101 Most Used Verbs in Spoken Arabic
Ok, this is pretty obvious.
This book helps you to focus on only THE MOST USED verbs. In that sense, it’s actually making life easy for you.
The given verbs are constantly used in typical daily conversations. Forget all the other verbs in the meantime (those are for when you have gotten a good grasp of the basics)
And what’s even better is that the book teaches you how to re-use one verb to come up with many different meanings!
As you can see from the picture, you can easily use the verb سكّر alone to express yourself in a multitude of ways – from hanging up the phone to slamming the door in someone’s face.
See what I mean? Imagine learning all of the 101 verbs!
**Although the book focuses on Spoken Arabic in Jordan and Palestine, that doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to speak to Lebanese or Syrians. All of the given verbs can also be found in both Syrian and Lebanese Arabic. I would say that the main difference between the countries’ spoken Arabic lies in the inflection of the verbs.
More Reasons As To Why The Book Is Top Notch
Chunking method
Language experts have often quoted the chunking method when it comes to remembering foreign vocabulary and speeding up the language learning process. And this book allows you to learn Levantine Arabic via the chunking method by showing you how each verb is used in short phrases to carry a different meaning.
In short, the chunking method refers to the technique of learning a language in chunks (i.e phrases or short sentences.) If you learn in this manner, you can easily express yourself in more ways simply by replacing words from phrases you’ve learned.
You can read an article by Mezzoguild here to see how the writer utilises the chunking method with Egyptian Arabic. If you’re interested in knowing more about the method, check out this article by FluentU here
Sentence examples
The various sentence examples provided for all 101 verbs do help me in gaining a greater understanding on how to correctly use those verbs. I’m also able to expand my vocabulary from the sentence examples. When I learn in this manner, I found that I’m able to retain the new vocabulary in my memory for a much longer period. Learning a word on its own without any sentence to provide contexts is always a big no-no in language learning!
More than just 101 verbs
There’s a list of additional verbs of the same verb form below every conjugation table.
This means that you’re actually getting much more than what the book promises! Once you have gotten a good grasp of the 101 verbs, it is definitely useful to look through the additional verbs because they are also used in everyday conversations.
Additional verbs of the same form listed below the table
How To Use It
Without a doubt, the best way to tackle this book is by going through it with a teacher. I did exactly this for some of the verbs when I was studying Arabic in Amman.
However, with a teacher or not, the book already serves as a great tool to form sentences and questions in everyday Arabic style.
The author also posted a YouTube video on how to use the book (see below). Also do check out the other videos posted on the same channel- I found them to be very informative.
Conclusion
Simply put, the book is off the charts. Did I mention that it also comes with a CD to aid in the pronunciation? The only section of the book which I didn’t really utilise is the vocabulary list at the end – simply because words rarely last long in my head if I learn them from a list.
It’s a really comprehensive book and I’m glad that I own one! I’m also appreciative of the fact that the book is written in Arabic letters instead of being in a transliterated format.
***
So that’s MY review on The 101 Most Used Verbs In Spoken Arabic: Jordan & Palestine (Third Edition)
Have you used the book before? Are you planning to get one? I would love to know your thoughts in the comments below.
The book should be available either via Amazon or Jamalon.
P.S.S I have also heard great reviews of other resources for Levantine Arabic such as the ones listed below. Feel free to check them out too!
- Shou Fi Ma Fi by Rajaa Chouairi
- Colloquial Palestinian Arabic: An Introduction To The Spoken Dialect by Nasser M Isleem
- Pimsleur Eastern Arabic (audio-based)
Take care and I’ll see ya in the hosh,
Lyn
linda
i have 2 books u mentioned above but i dont have any one to sit with me.
admin
Have the 2 books been useful for you? It’s okay if you don’t have anyone to sit with you – just try to include whatever you learned from the books in conversations. That way, you’ll remember words and phrases better. If there are no Arabic speaking communities in your country, perhaps you can check out language apps like Tandem to search for language partners! Lyn
linda
thank you..i ll check tandem out!
Nadeem
A text book should be based on the four skills, includes audio and videos conversations and pronunciation practice, interactive activities, not just verbs in sentences.
Genereally, the production of Arabic books for MSA and dialects is still mediocre, for the huge lack of investments and creativity, One has only to compare modern languages textbooks for English, Fench, Spanish, etc to see the tremendous difference in quality and quantity.
Lyn
Hi Nadeem, thanks for your comment. Hmm perhaps, but this book is not meant to be a comprehensive textbook to learn Jordanian and Palestinian Arabic.
It is a book that introduces the 101 most used verbs and shows students the many ways a verb can be used to carry multiple meanings. And what better way to demonstrate that but through sentences. In addition, this book comes with a CD that contains an audio recording of all sentences.
In my opinion, it did what it set out to do. The book is a very valuable resource for students who know how to navigate the book and make full use of it.
I agree with you with regards to the mediocre quantity of Arabic books. Production of books in Arabic dialects is even more limited than MSA. Like any other Arabic learners, I hope that more attention and investments can be catered towards producing high-quality Arabic resources.