Shwayy ‘An Haali (šwayy 3an ɧāli شْوَيّ عن حالي A Little About Myself) will be of tremendous help to independent language learners who want to develop their conversational skills and increase their Levantine (Lebanese and Syrian) Arabic vocabulary.
Very simply, Shwayy ‘An Haali presents the results of a survey given to 10 Levantine Arabic speakers, five from Lebanon and five from Syria. Each of the 30 sections in the book begins with a question from the survey followed by the 10 responses and a breakdown of the vocabulary. Each section concludes with a page where you are encouraged to give your own answer to the question using newly learned words and phrases.
The book has been designed in such a way that it can be an effective learning tool for learners at all levels, with glossaries of even the most basic words for beginners, and unvoweled texts and Modern Standard Arabic translations for more advanced learners.
- What’s your name?
- Where are you from?
- How old are you?
- When were you born?
- What do you do?
- Where do you live?
- Are you married?
- Do you have any brothers or sisters?
- Do you speak any foreign languages?
- What is your favorite color?
- Do you play any sports?
- What did you eat for lunch yesterday?
- When do you usually get up?
- What is your favorite food?
- Who is your favorite actor or actress?
- What are you wearing today?
- How many times a year do you get sick?
- What did you do this morning?
- What is your favorite season or kind of weather?
- Do you like to sing or dance?
- What color are your eyes and hair?
- What is your favorite holiday of the year?
- Can you drive?
- Where do you meet your friends?
- Is there anything you don’t like eating?
- What are you afraid of?
- How do you feel today?
- What are you going to do tomorrow?
- What is your favorite hobby?
- How would you describe your personality?
louis (verified owner) –
I love this resource, I have the book and the flash cards. I highly recommend getting both! There is nothing like this out there just giving regular conversation of regular people talking in the regular accent. Each question is great for using in real conversation. This resource has helped me greatly with my listening and speaking skills.
Raluca –
I love it. I think this is one of the best books to learn spoken arabic because of its format. The audio tracks are essential for me in Learning a Language and these audios are of great quality from a sound point of view as well of a linguistic one since the speakers use real dialect and speak at a normal speed, which means some speak faster and some slower but in a natural way, so that the learner can get used to the natural speed of conversation. Questions and answers I think are extremely relevant as well and I appreciate the various translations: I especially love that both sentences and individual words and particles are translated because this enables the learner to better understand both the general meaning of a word as well as the context in which that is used. I also appreciate the presence of the modern standard arabic translation, really nice for those like me who like to compare MSA to colloquials and not completely forget the MSA variety. The only category of students who wouldn’t benefit from this as much maybe is those who have no arabic background whatsoever especially if they aren’t used with the alpgabet and the writing.
I am definitely glad I bought it and I’m looking forward to finishing it and buying the second one of the collection. I’m only halfway through the book and I can already see improvements in my listening ability as I am now able to understand more words when I listen to a person naturally speaking in their dialect.
ZAHIDA –
VERY GOOD
Danielle –
This s such a great book, with its easy layout and the differentiation between variations within the Levant dialect, this book is really good way to build the basics of your levant dialect. I especially liked the comparison of levant to MSA as it made it easier to highlight the key differences (for someone who studied MSA first). I would definitely recommend this book to anyone starting off learning levant.
Ybla –
Simply GREAT !
I really reccomend this book for anyone who is keen on learning Lebanese and Syrian dialects. Very well made, looking forward to continuing with the second book. This book helped me building my knowledge in Lebvantine dialect and I am able to communicate and understand with native speakers easily. It is a great book for whoever has some basic knowledge in MSA but prefers concentrating on a dialect. I chose this book because I am working with people coming from Syria and Lebanon and cannot communicate in other language rather than their own. This is the reason why I find this book GREAT
Full stars, I’d give an additional one if I could !