Fethi Mansouri - Survival Arabic Phrasebook & Dictionary: How to Communicate Without Fuss or Fear Instantly! (Arabic Phrasebook & Dictionary) Completely Revised and Expanded with New Manga Illustrations

SURVIVAL ARABICPHRASEBOOK & DICTIONARYHow to communicate without fuss or fear INSTANTLY!Revised Editionby Yamina Gharsa and Fethi MansouriIntroduction Most people use fewer than 1,000 words of their first language every day. With just a vocabulary of a few hundred words, youll be able to communicate a lot of ideas so as to socialize with the locals as well as to survive any situation you might find yourself in. Survival Arabics approach is all about providing you with words, expressions and phrases commonly used in Arab socities, and supplying them both in helpful romanized transliteration and in Arabic characters. We hope this book helps you take the first step to communicating in Arabic with those who speak it. How to Use This Book There are at least ten different Arabic dialects used throughout the Arabic world, and although they belong to the same family, they can be as different as French, Italian, Spanish, and other Romance languages are from one another. These are bridged by Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which all Arabs can use to communicate with each other, and its what weve used in this book, with some colloquial phrases added in to help you along the way.

In addition to the Arabic characters, a transliteration using the familiar English alphabet is provided to help you pronounce the words, phrases, or sentences correctly. At the beginning of this book is an invaluable pronunciation guide, which explains how to pronounce the soundswhereby you can use English as a guide to read out the Arabic lettersalthough nothing quite beats practicing with a native speaker to learn exactly how Arabic letters and sounds are pronounced. Arabic Pronunciation There are 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet, and their pronunciation is always the same, unlike the pronunciation of words like car and cease. THE ARABIC ALPHABET All Arabic letters are consonants. Generally speaking the Arabic language does not have the same system as the English alphabet.

Sounds like	Example
alif a as in arm	anaa I
b as in bat	balad country
t as in to	tadliik massage
th as in three	th laatha three
j as in jelly	jamiil beautiful
h No English equivalent. Sounds like Example alif a as in arm anaa I b as in bat balad country t as in to tadliik massage th as in three th laatha three j as in jelly jamiil beautiful h No English equivalent. An emphatic h sound, from the very back of the throat. Heavily aspirated. h ob love kh , as in loch kh amsa five d as in debt daar house dh as in there dh ahaba to go r, a rolled r sound miraah mirror z as in zoo zaara visited s as in sun saaah hour sh as in shine sh ukran thank you s like s, but very heavily pronounced. sadiiq friend d like d, but very heavily pronounced. d aabit officer t , like t, very heavily pronounced. (similar to Tokyo) t ifl child z Like th or z but very heavily (similar to those) z ahr back pronounced No English equivalent. Like a with a constriction of the throat. ayn eye gh , No English equivalent. An r in the back of the throat gh aniy rich f as in face fiil elephant q , a k sound from deep in the back of the throat. q utn cotton k as in kite kitaab book l as in light laymoon lemon m as in mango mawz bananas n as in nuts naml ants h as in hammer hilaal crescent moon w as in was wardah rose y as in yellow yad hand ARABIC VOWELS In standard Arabic, there are three short vowels commonly called h arakaat and three long vowels called h uruf al mad . Short vowels These are indicated by adding small symbols, above or below the consonants they are to be pronounced to make the sounds a, u or i. Sign Sound in English Example (fat h ah) above the letter a as in at kataba to write (kasrah) below the letter i as in it kitaab a book ( d ammah) above the letter u as in put kutub books In Survival Arabic, short vowels and diacritics are written to prevent confusion, e.g., to differentiate Amman from Oman or to indicate the passive voice, e.g., the passive form of the word to write kataba is written kutiba . Sign Sound in English Example (fat h ah) above the letter a as in at kataba to write (kasrah) below the letter i as in it kitaab a book ( d ammah) above the letter u as in put kutub books In Survival Arabic, short vowels and diacritics are written to prevent confusion, e.g., to differentiate Amman from Oman or to indicate the passive voice, e.g., the passive form of the word to write kataba is written kutiba . Short vowels and diacritics are useful for learners, but once you know the language they are not needed. Apart from religious and poetry texts, Arabs rarely use short vowels ( h arakaat). Long Vowels The long vowels are written with normal letters from the Arabic alphabet and they are the same sounds as the short vowels, but twice as long. These three letters are called: alif , waaw and yaa . Sign Sound in English Example aa as in far but longer anaa I ii as in see um-mii my mother uu as in noon boyoot houses SHADDA (DOUBLING OF CONSONANTS) A double consonant is where the consonant is stressed, such as in bookkeeping or unnatural, e.g., muda rr is teacher. MADDAH A glottal stop, where the voice breaks like in uh-oh is denoted by a wavy line (~)