This is a new Arabic Level II. For everyone who has completed Level I - and can’t wait to continue, Eastern Arabic II provides a greatly increased ability to discuss everyday topics in only thirty days. Listeners will soon find that they’ve more than doubled their ability to communicate!
About the Author
Dr. Paul Pimsleur devoted his life to language teaching and testing and was one of the world’s leading experts in applied linguistics. After years of experience and research, Dr. Pimsleur developed The Pimsleur Method based on two key principles: the Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory training that he called ?Graduated Interval Recall.? This Method has been applied to the m [Read More...]
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This was an overdue release of a much needed course. Learning Arabic is challenging because in all Arabic countries two languages are used: Colloquial and Standard Arabic. There are many varieties of Colloquial Arabic such as Egyptian, Syrian, Gulf, and Yemeni among other forms of the spoken language. For business, educational, and literary purposes Modern Standard Arabic (or Fus-Ha) is the primary choice. If you want to communicate with friends, relatives and people in the streets, the Colloquial is the best way to go. Deciding upon where to start and what to learn is a challenge in itself. This second level of the Pimsleur Eastern Arabic is a great continuation to the excellent level one. Some of the dialogues are of questionable usefulness such as spending a lot of time on the issue of playing cards. Of course, one can always generalize the skill acquired in a less than useful linguistic situation to better master the mechanics of a language. Once the Comprehensive Arabic I is completed, I would suggest to download the book and mp3 files from the “Syrian Arabic” website for a more traditional introduction to the Syrian Arabic. The “Syrian Arabic’ website method is well designed and free (although I suggest a donation to maintain the site running). For those interested in Lebanese Arabic, I suggest the purchase of “Arabic You Need” by Hadia Harb (CD’s and text). Syrian and Lebanese colloquials are close enough to use the Pimsleur course for conversations with Lebanese people. A teacher eventually is a must. A serious student of Arabic will eventually have to take the plunge and study Modern Standard Arabic, but this is a different story. For now, let’s pray that the folks at Pimsleur will take less time to release the level III course than they took to release level II. Despite its minor flaws, the level II follows the steps of level I and deserves five stars.
Review updated 19 August 2009
This is the second installment of Pimsleur’s Eastern Arabic I, 2nd Edition.
NOTE: If you completed Pimsleur Arabic (Eastern) I, 1st Edition, copyright 2003; you will not make a smooth transition into this product, namely Pimsleur Eastern Arabic II. You need to get Pimsleur Eastern Arabic I, 2nd Edition.
The dialect used in the Pimsleur Eastern Arabic II CDs is the one of Damascus, Syria.
The pronunciation is from natives of Syria and is crystal clear.
If you are going to Egypt, you need to get Pimsleur Egyptian Arabic.
After you complete this course, you will smoothly transition into Pimsleur Eastern Arabic III which was released in July of 2009.
I have been given this entire course, Levels I and II, by my partner as a gift. I have to admit it gives you a kick off, helps you improve your accent considerably, and makes you start thinking in Syrian Arabic. For me this is an effortless and fun way to get started and get to quite a level, provided you have some supplementary material to build your Syrian Arabic vocab. To be honest, if I had a suggestion to make to Pimsleur for this course it would be to release level III, make the dialogs a bit longer, and ease it on the price. Other than that this course is AWESOME, at least for Syrian Arabic it is, on the contrary the Egyptian Arabic level I, which I got to hear from a friend is not as good. So, if any of you want to learn Syrian Arabic, get the Comprehensive Pimsleur Eastern Arabic I, II (and hopefully III) course, get the excellent Syrian Arabic grammar and dictionary by Georgetown University Press also on sale at amazon, and once you complete all three levels, also in between, get a hold of a native speaker and you’ll be set to discover the beauty of Syrian Arabic, my favorite colloquial. I give this course 4 stars because of the length of the dialogs and the price, quite pricey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!