Kalaam Kull Yoom 1: Situational Egyptian Arabic is designed to help elementary and intermediate learners succeed at critical moments during everyday communicative tasks. This is the first of two books in a series.

This is the book I wish I had when I first went to live in Egypt. I had a pretty good grasp on colloquial Arabic grammar. I could conjugate verbs and form basic sentences. I knew “lots of words”… or so I thought. But I would so often find myself in situations unable to express my thoughts and needs and struggling to understand what people were saying to me. I was always worried that my awkward exchanges with locals made me come across as rude because I didn’t know the right things to say at the right times. Understandably, I wanted to prepare before I tried to tackle specific communicative challenges–such as getting my hair cut. But how? I found myself flipping through various course books and pocket dictionaries looking for words and phrases to use with the barber. I would bring lists to my teacher. How do you say “not too short”? What’s the word for “sideburns”? How do I make small talk with my barber? (I knew that Egyptian barbers were chatty!) It was a lot of research to accomplish a simple task I’d taken for granted back home.

This is not a course book with chapters that build on each other and need to be studied in order. Use the Table of Contents at the front of the book (also located on the back cover of the paperback edition, for your convenience) to find the topic that interests you for your immediate or future communicative goals. Of course, you’re not going to go out into the real world and have conversations with people that follow the dialogues line by line. The purpose of the dialogues is to teach you different words and phrases that you can use and that you may hear. Synonyms, alternative expressions, and supplementary vocabulary are provided to help you form your own sentences to express yourself and to be prepared for the variety of possible things you may hear Egyptians say to you.

By studying the dialogues, learning new vocabulary and key expressions, and listening to the accompanying audio, you will soon find yourself able to express yourself with confidence and understand people in Egypt with fewer misunderstandings.