Arabic Stories for Language Learners: Traditional Middle Eastern Tales In Arabic and English (Online Included) Paperback – August 6, 2013

This book is the most helpful I have ever encountered to gain fluency in Arabic reading and listening comprehension. The CD is the absolute best because the producers were smart enough to have the readers speak clearly and slowly enough for an intermediate learner to understand. The CD is professional quality with excellent readers and no background noise to interfere. Play it every day and you will soon be thinking in Arabic. Plus the stories are interesting, often with a profound message from the ancient Arab world. In addition, the written text is clear and large. The Islamic art dispersed throughout the book is a bonus. The vocabulary involves words that are commonly used in everyday language, which is a great advantage. If you started learning Arabic using the famous Modern Standard orange books from the University of Michigan, you will appreciate Arabic Stories for its lack of technical language and complications of sophisticated texts which are too specialized for use in normal conversation. This delightful book uses vocabulary that is practical and much of it is repeated in various ways to allow you to really learn it. With Arabic's vast vocabulary, it is so nice to have an entertaining book that selects verbs and nouns that can be used in conversation with native speakers. The selection of stories goes far in helping Western students appreciate traditional cultural values of Arabs. If you have invested time in learning Arabic to the intermediate level (to the point where you can fill in most short vowels by your knowledge of Arabic Grammar), you must get this book. It will take you closer to the easy facility with Arabic that you always wanted. And the price is modest. Buy it! You won't regret it.

Absolutely amazing learning tool, the online audio and worksheets further reinforce learning through listening, comprehension, and writing. I love how this book has helped me further my arabic skills through a mix of lighthearted, fun, and valuable lessons for life through the various stories.

Great condition. Arrival on time. The book is useful for Arabic learners - it would have been better if the diacritics were also provided. Translations are decent. The fun of reading so many different stories itself justifies the purchase. I have not used the CD so far, but I assume they will read the stories on there and the matter of pronounciation will be addressed by way of that. I didn't feel this is for beginning Arabic students, more like intermediate. I will be using it to teach some students while trying to make the learning fun. I imagine they would be lost without a teacher - to help them unpack the morphology and grammar. In other words, it's a very useful teaching aid but not self sufficient.

Although I am not finished with the book, I must say that I am impressed with the book thus far and the stories to come. I have found several stories to be quite hysterical! As an Arabic language learner, it helps immensely to have the audio available along with stories. The stories are easy to read and follow along. Apart from the audio, the large print, spacing, and English translation all make this book a masterpiece to add to a collection of Arabic literature for language learners. The vocabulary is not too challenging. If you've been studying Arabic for at least two years or more (intermediate level at least) then this is your go-to book for Arabic literature. It is a great starting place. I am curious to know if similar material with audio is available from the authors.

This book is great practice for those looking to build basic Arabic reading skills. You can access recordings of each story either on the included CD or online, which is useful for mastering correct pronunciation. Using traditional Arabic stories adds cultural context as well.

Hezi Brosh and Lutfi Mansur did a great job of collecting 66 short Arabic stories with various moral, historic and cultural lessons. As a student of Arabic, the audio track is my favorite feature of the book. The recordings are in Modern Standard Arabic and the dialogues were recorded with voice actors, which helps to animate the stories. The parables range in size, from one paragraph, to multiple pages, and on the opposing page is the English translation to provide assistance if the reader gets lost in translation.

Excellent piece of work and one that's been needed for quite a while. A beginner with a lot of experience and enthusiasm could probably get through this book, but I think it's more ideally suited for people who are at a mid-intermediate level and higher. Although I have a Kindle, I bought the physical copy because there is an audio CD that accompanies the book which goes a long way in helping one's pronunciation. There aren't any vowel markings for the Arabic words in this book, so again, the CD is invaluable. Aside from helping to learn the language, the stories in this book are interesting even if you only read them in English. I hope to see more books of this type and quality in the near future.

The selection of stories is excellent but the book has some issues. The authors do not give salutations to the Prophet (saw). The construction of the book is poor. The glue started pulling apart the first time it was opened. The CD package is glued with excessively strong tape, causing the book to tear if it is removed. The English font is terribly formatted. It looks like a double-spaced undergraduate paper with improperly set margins.