books

[Jester]

First, congratulations on the site and podcast. I speak a bunch of languages, all self-taught, and am writing a book on the techniques I've discovered (that they NEVER use in school!), and this kind of thing is right up my alley.

Normally I read a lot in my target language, but I'm having trouble finding material in Arabic. Ideal would be written at a level for about a 10 year old, but not text books or boring dialogues about where is the post office. I mean real, interesting books or text, whether fiction or non. The kind of stuff that's so interesting that you forget you're reading a foreign language and just want to know what happens next. Magazines can be good, too.

But it seems like the only elementary reading I can find in Arabic is either Koranic or picture books for toddlers, plus some poetry.

I've found a couple of bi-lingual books: arabic/french and arabic/italian, which help, but I'd love to find more. I've also bought some books in both arabic and english translation, but good translations often follow meaning much more than words, making it harder to really get what's going on in the Arabic sentence.

So, any suggestions are welcome. But, please, no textbooks!
shukran jazeelen!

[Moshaya]

Hi Jester,

I understand how hard it is sometimes on finding a decent book on studying a language. I am in the process of learning a new language and am having a similar problem. However, Occasionally I come across some “interesting books” that you were talking about. The kind of stuff that is informative and fun to read. Unfortunately since I speak Arabic already I am not familiar with much of the Arabic materials. Hopefully some of our users can recommend one for you…I will start a new thread in the general forum as well

Mohamed

[Jester]

Thanks, Moshaya,

But you missed my point. I'm not looking for books ABOUT Arabic, just good books IN Arabic. And you, as a native speaker, no doubt know TONS of them.

The only requirement is that they're easy to read. Now if someone was learning English and had that request, I'd direct them to, for instance, the Young Adult section, where you get good, racy novels, but written at an easier level than adult books. But I can't find anything like that in Arabic.

[Ehab]

Hello Jesser;
There is a series of Arabic adventure books called ALMO3'AMEROON AL-7'AMSA, I read tens and tens of them when I was around 16, each is 100-200 pages, however if you understand them you'll be addicted in reading them.
I did a research over the net and I found people have made pdf files out of them
Here is a copy: http://www.geocities.com/arabicpod1/035.pdf (Right click then Save Target as..)
Good luck,, if you have difficulty in understanding anything,, just post it and I'm here to help.
Ehab

[Jester]

You're wonderful! Thanks, I'll check them out.
Still love your podcast, BTW.

[kingdon]

The link is down, perhaps due to copyright concerns from Geocities. Bummer. Maybe we can get in touch with the publisher and get it cleared for academic use?

I'm reading Hikayyat min Kalila wa Dimna; it's pretty elementary and the book I got from amazon comes with audio cd's as well as exercises and vocabulary reference. I'd like to get into something a little more meaty (something the level of Goosebumps in English, that was great fun in 8th grade.) Around 100-200 pages sounds exactly right, I'll see if I can find a copy of Al-mo3'ameroon al-7'amsa for myself.

Jester, we should talk more, sounds like we're in the same boat; I've done 3 years of Arabic study along with 3 years of high-school spanish, some chinese, german, latin, and korean. What's your background? I'm a computer science major.

[kingdon]

The link is down, perhaps due to copyright concerns from Geocities. Bummer. Maybe we can get in touch with the publisher and get it cleared for academic use?

I jumped the gun, the link is fine; it was down momentarily for some reason. In case it goes down again I've put up a mirror here:

http://www.cs.rit.edu/~kpb1363/035.pdf

[khaemwaset]

Hello Jesser;
There is a series of Arabic adventure books called ALMO3'AMEROON AL-7'AMSA.
I did a research over the net and I found people have made pdf files out of them

I was wondering how you do this research. Googling for ALMO3'AMEROON AL-7'AMSA doesn't turn up anything, probably due to different ways of transcribing Arabic.

Or is there an Arabic search engine?

Thanks!

[Jester]

KIngdon,
I have Kalila wa Dimna too, and it's useful, especially with the accompanying CD, but it's got the same problem I mentioned before: content. I mean these are not really interesting stories unless you're a scholar of that sort of thing. Only so many clever animals killing each other that I can take and I'm certainly not turning over pages eagerly to see what's next. Why doesn't someone go to the same kind of trouble they did putting that book together, but using some modern, fascinating story?
Goosebumps. Yeah, that's the ticket.
I've downloaded and begun reading Al-mo3'etc. Seems to be missing pages 2 and 3. Anyone else have that problem? Anyway, seems to be the right level and content. Stories about teenagers are almost always interesting.
Sounds like you have some wide-ranging interests.
As for me, I'm currently a wine writer and educator, which is why I decided to learn French, Italian, German, Spanish....I get much better interviews that way. I was a horse trainer for years, also a private investigator, handwriting analyst, ski instructor and more. I'm currently a board certified hypnotherapist and besides wine I write about addiction, neurology and, of course, how to learn languages. I work off the wine job perks with trapeze, belly dance, tightrope and generally affirming my ADD diagnosis. You can learn more at my site: http://www.corkjester.com.

[xingyifa1]

Hi
Could someone post another link to the books please? The 2 links already posted in this thread seem to be dead.
thanks

[Ehab]

I am so sorry,, here is another one: http://www.geocities.com/arabicpod1/mughameroon1.pdf

[xingyifa1]

I'm sorry, that page doesn't seem to be working for me either...

[Ehab]

xingyifa1,, don't click on the link,, you need to Right click and chose Save Target As.. try it and let me know if you still have a problem: http://www.geocities.com/arabicpod1/mughameroon1.pdf
Good luck

[xingyifa1]

I keep getting an error message to the effect that the file is corrupted somehow. I am trying to open the file with Adobe Reader 7.0. What program are you able to view the file with?
thanks so much for your time

[Ehab]

Alright,, first, make sure you've saved it on the Desktop of your computer, open it from there,, if it still gives error message, then this must be from adobe reader,, I use adobe reader 8.0,, just upgrade ur adobe reader and inshallah it will work after that.
Hope it work this time.