Popular Proverbs: An Entrance to Palestinian Culture (English and Arabic Edition)

First , trivial but important matters - the book is printed in the United States with the paper, print and binding of the highest quality that makes it a pleasure just to hold and read it.The content - I asked a native speaker of Arabic to read a dozen of pages - he confirmed that all proverbs are real, known and correct. The proverbs are organized by the alphabet but there is a topical index at the end. Each proverb is written in Arabic, but then also transliterated - a real help for those who do not feel confident in reading the Arabic script. The translation shows a literal translation word by word, followed by equivalent English proverb or free flowing text explaining what it means.There is a historic background for many entries of how such proverb came to life.The author also offers audio CD with all the proverbs recorded - you can find it on the publisher site, but I haven’t bought it so cannot say more about its quality.

This is the first review I've made in going on 7 years being an Amazon member. That being said, I felt compelled to write this to serious learners of Arabic, or Palestinian Arabic in particular. In short, this book has some well-known proverbs and lots of proverbs that none of my Palestinian friends have ever heard of.I'll detail my review now. If you're a student of Arabic and in particular a student of Palestinian Arabic, then you might be tempted to buy this book. The major problem with this book is that unless you have a fluent or native speaker of Palestinian Arabic with you to confirm what's actually said and what's not said, then you will run the risk of memorizing proverbs only to be met by confusion on behalf of the person to whom you're speaking. I went over a vast amount of the proverbs in the book with Palestinians all over who lived all over the Palestinian territories and Israel, and that's what I learned. I mean besides asking native speakers you can literally just google a proverb from the book and there's a great chance that you'll get zero matches on it. Why is that? I have no idea. I don't know why someone would write a book, advertise it as Palestinian and not bother to get Palestinians from other parts of the county to verify if the proverbs are actually mainstream Palestinian or just said and understood in a small village somewhere. It really baffles me.This isn't to say that there aren't genuine, well-known Palestinian proverbs in the book; it's flooded with them. Many even go beyond just Palestinian and are well known in many Arab countries. However, there's no way (in the book itself) to know which proverb is actually used and known to your average Arab/Palestinian. And that's why I can't recommend this book to students of Arabic who are wanting to learn Palestinian proverbs. Again, it's not that you won't find them in this book. It's just that they are flooded by an ocean of proverbs that a very high number of Palestinians (let alone Arabs in other Arabic speaking countries) have never uttered or heard.Now it you want to learn Palestinian proverbs and you have access to a Palestinian or someone fluent in Palestinian Arabic. Then I would recommend the book, so long as you're prepared to literally ask them, "hey, is this proverb popular? Do you ever use it? Have you heard of it before?". I strongly recommend asking these questions to them when you stumble across a proverb you find interesting and useful to learn.I have to give credit to the fact that each proverb is written in the Arabic script with diacritical marks, it's nicely transliterated into English letters and then translated and explained. That's a huge plus for Arabic students and it is printed very nicely. Bu given everything I said previously, I can't recommend this book unless you have someone to help you decipher what's used and well-known and what you should avoid.

This book is better than I thought it would be. For each proverb, you will typically see the Arabic writing, underneath a transliteration, then below that a literal translation and/or the English translation, and then an explanation of the proverb.

Very unique and useful book! Because Arabic integrated so many of these Proverbs and idioms into everyday language, this is a great tool to both understand Arabic better and sound more like a native speaker by incorporating them into your speaking.Also as a non-native speaker, Arabic Proverbs are a great conversation starter - if you know a few of these Proverbs, you will have a fun time with Arabic speakers!

As a teacher of both Arabic and French language, one challenge that I always face is that of integrating cultural lessons in the language classroom, particularly at the elementary level. I have often used proverbs, tongue twisters, songs, and nursery rhymes as a means of presenting various cultures to students in the target language, but I never found an adequate text to present such cultural gems to my students. Having read Nasser's book, I am pleased to say that it is truly a treasure trove of colloquial wisdom and day-to-day culture presented in a format that makes it ideal for multiple uses. Nasser provides us with a wide variety of sayings, some simple and some more complex, which makes the book useful for beginning, intermediate, or advanced students of Arabic. The literal translations help the students to understand the words, the anecdotes help to contextualize the proverbs, and the English equivalents help students to appreciate both the similarities and differences between Palestinian and American cultures.The proverbs presented in Nasser's book are also an excellent way for beginning students to enrich their language with expressions that are not available in most commonly-used Arabic language textbooks. They also provide students with a means to use the language in context; the book presents students with meaningful language that they can easily use in conversation with classmates.I am thrilled to ave such an excellent text for use in my classroom, and I hope that it becomes a standard text in Arabic language classrooms.

I've been using this book for a year now and it is one of my favourite resources for studying Arabic. A couple of months ago, I bought a copy as a birthday gift for a friend who is also studying Arabic -- I think every student of Arabic should have a copy close at hand.Each proverb provides both a glimpse into the culture and a deeper understanding of the language. The format is especially helpful — the proverbs are written in both Arabic and transliterated and the explanation is in English -- so it is accessible for all levels of Arabic.It is an invaluable resource for both language and cultural understanding, I cannot recommend it enough!