Aj6VCxsfpec.srt

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Hi Guys.
Today I'm going to talk about this book,

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teach yourself Arabic and I'm going to 
tell you whether it is a genius work of 

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art or a piece of crap from hell.

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Okay,

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good afternoon guys.
I'm going to talk today about a book and

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CD program that I used in the past to 
study Arabic.

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Uh,
it's called teach yourself Arabic from 

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the infamous teach yourself series a in 
it's this book right here by Jack smarts

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and Francis El Toro for or something 
like that.

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I don't know how to say his last name,
first of all.

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That's a,
I should say upfront.

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I want to be careful that we're talking 
about the same book.

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There are actually two books called 
teach yourself Arabic.

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This one right here is the old one from 
1991.

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This one is basically focused on,
uh,

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on receptive skills on reading and 
listening to Arabic.

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It's not really focused on 
conversational or communicative Arabic.

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That one is kind of universally 
lambasted by people who buy it because 

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when they buy a teacher yourself booked,
they're hoping to learn to communicate.

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Most people,
I think.

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And that book is basically based on um,
reading and listening to the news in 

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Arabic.
That's really the purpose of that book.

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So we're gonna focus on this one,
which is the new one published in 2001 

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and it has a much more community 
communicative,

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conversational focus and it's much more 
suitable for the average learner who 

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buys teach yourself.
So we'll talk about this.

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It's a pretty good book but it has some 
weaknesses.

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So I want to talk about those just to 
give you an idea and that will help you 

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maybe use the book better.
So first of all,

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the book is based on,
well it's teaching you modern standard 

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Arabic.
That is the formal kind of Arabic,

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the standard Arabic that is used in 
newspapers.

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It's used in the media and it's used 
kind of as a tool to to communicate 

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across dialects because Arabic has a lot
of different dialects.

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So when people want to communicate with 
a speaker of another dialect,

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they kind of,
they incorporate some of the standard 

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language into their speech to make it 
understandable for the other person.

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So this is,
this is all about modern standard 

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Arabic,
but it teaches it in a way that is 

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communicative,
conversational and helps you to interact

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in daily situations.
So that's kind of rare.

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There are some other books now that,
that do the same thing,

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but a few years ago this was kind of the
only,

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the only popular book like that,
the only common book like that.

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And it was kind of rare to find in 
modern standard Arabic book that did 

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that.
Um,

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so it's good for that and it's good in 
the language that it teaches.

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Like if you look at unit one,
two,

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three,
four,

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five,
six,

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seven,
those they teach good language that's 

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useful in daily situations in the 
vocabulary of presents I think is 

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useful,
presented in a logical order.

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Um,
it gives you a lot of experience with 

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different language skills.
So it's not only just the reading and 

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the listening,
but it gives you a chance to do some 

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writing exercises and that gives you a 
chance to do some grammar exercises.

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It's got a good balance of skills,
I find.

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Of course you're not speaking with 
someone,

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you're not.
No one's listening to you and giving you

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feedback unless you have a private 
teacher.

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But it covers all of the bases to 
whatever extent a book like this can.

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So it is a regular teacher self book 
even though it's based on a modern 

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standard Arabic.
So it's good,

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uh,
good in that sense.

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The strange thing about this book is 
that it switches gears suddenly,

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like the first seven units are based on 
good conversational situations,

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daily life situations.
Then in unit eight it switches gears and

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throws you in head first into this 
traditional story about Sinbad,

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the sailor,
and I think it's actually an authentic 

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text from a book,
from some old book and it's written in 

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very kind of archaic Arabic and they 
throw you in head first and you're 

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reading this going,
wait,

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I haven't learned this stuff yet.

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Why am I reading about Sinbad,
the sailor using these archaic sentence 

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structures?
So I found that unit quite frustrating 

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and it made me want to stop using the 
book to be honest,

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because there were things in that story 
that I couldn't find in this book that I

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couldn't find them in,
uh,

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on the internet and Google as trying to 
s to search and find what these 

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grammatical structures mean,
but it couldn't.

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Um,
so I think the idea that they had was to

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force you to,
to understand the main meaning without 

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understanding everything.
But if they do that without explaining 

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that,
and they do that suddenly,

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even though the first seven units were 
kind of different than it's a shock to 

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your system and you're going to get 
frustrated.

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So I found unit eight was annoying.
Unit nine was similar because they threw

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you in to a bunch of advertisements,
like the advertisements from a newspaper

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or a magazine.

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Uh,
and there were some apartment ads,

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like looking for an apartment and the 
exercises ask you questions and you have

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to answer it based on these 
advertisements.

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But the advertisements are full of words
that you haven't seen before and it's 

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just really hard to decipher them.
Uh,

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and there's not a lot of guidance or 
explanation about the goal of that 

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exercise.
So if they had said like,

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do the goal here is just a scan for 
important information,

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don't worry about everything,
then maybe it would be easier for 

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learners to get through and not worry 
about the stuff they're missing.

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But it doesn't really do that.
It just throws you in,

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you confused because you're expected to 
deal with all this language you haven't 

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learned yet.
So that's a weakness of this book cause 

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that that element,
it's written by two people and I have 

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the feeling that uh,
units one to seven were written by one 

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person,
unit eight and nine,

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and some of the others were written by 
someone else.

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That could be true.
I'm not sure.

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Um,
later on in the book,

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some of the chapters get back to that 
communicative focus and that's good.

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But some of them are still unclear.
And there were,

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there are some sections where you're 
thrown in head first without adequate 

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guidance.
I feel.

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Um,
another weakness of the book is that at 

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some vocabulary appears in the exercises
or in the texts that is not taught.

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It's not given to you in the book and 
it's not in the glossary at the back of 

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the book.
So for,

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uh,
for,

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um,
a new learner who has just bought one of

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these books and doesn't have an arsenal 
of dictionaries and grammar reference 

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books and stuff yet that's really 
frustrating.

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Uh,
it's one of the most frustrating things 

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to look in the glossary and not find the
word you're looking for,

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especially when it appears in this book.

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Um,
they're also very simple words.

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I tried to look up,
like I remember when I was using this 

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book,
I remember thinking to myself like 

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almost every time I went to look up a 
word in the glossary,

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it wasn't there.
Even when it was a really simple English

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word,
I would look it up and it wouldn't be 

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there.
And I would always be thinking,

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why isn't that word in this book?
Why isn't it in the glossary?

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That's such a simple,
basic word.

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It should be in here.
Um,

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so the glossary is not up to snuff,
I think.

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Um,
and they should really make sure that 

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everything we're expected to,
uh,

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expected to deal with.
All the words were expected to 

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understand it should be taught in this 
book.

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So they don't do that.
To get around that,

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you need to have a good dictionary and 
to know how to look up words in that 

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dictionary using the root or whatever 
the system is.

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So get a dictionary and that will help 
you out a lot with this.

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So with that said,
it's good.

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It's,
it does teach good language and it 

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teaches good situations and I think,
um,

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uh,
it,

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it teaches modern standard Arabic in a 
way that is useful for you to use as a 

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communication tool.
So just be prepared for those weaknesses

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if you get this book.
Uh,

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just that there are some parts that 
throw you in head first without a lot of

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support.
If you're an inductive learner,

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if you're someone who likes to figure 
things out without a lot of help,

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then you might enjoy that and just 
slugged through it and find that fun.

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Um,
but if you're a more traditional 

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deductive learner,
and you like to get the instruction up 

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front,
and then,

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uh,
no,

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everything that comes after that,
then this book might frustrate you a 

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bit,
but it's good.

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I'll give it 3.5
stars out of five.

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Not the best,
but not the worst.

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All right.
Thank you for listening and have a nice,

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yeah.