15-Minute Arabic CD Pack: Learn Arabic in Just 15 Minutes a Day - Dorling Kindersley Publishing > Reviews (1)

More fine greetings to you fellow Ciao-ers!

Those people that know me well would tell you I am absolutely in love with traveling. I just adore finding out about different cultures, languages, crafts….. Some places are like completely other worlds! Recently I’ve been obsessed with the idea of Marrakech in Morocco, which I hope to visit this Easter. With this in mind, I have been trying to get to grips with some basic Arabic, and so I purchased The Eyewitness Travel 15-Minute Arabic book.

Oh, only if it were actually 15 minutes to learn a whole language! Hmmmm, but I guess that would take the fun out of it! I purchased this book for £7.99 from Waterstones in the Metro Centre (which has sadly now closed down! I could have cried!). I chose this book over other, more in depth looking books because it looked to give the most easily understandable information. Not only does the book teach you language, but it also informs you of script, signs, etiquette and other practical things which I am led to believe are very important when travelling in a Middle-Eastern country. This pleased my mother as well, who gets quite nervous when I go travelling as I tend to get myself in to the most random situations!

The book is divided into daily 15 minute lessons, which are very short. If you take time to read, study and listen to the accompanying tracks on the tape, it becomes quite clear, and enough information for you to take in and retain on a day to day basis. The book is divided into 12 primary chapters, covering everything practical you might need to get by on your travels. This includes Greetings, directions, eating and drinking, services and leisure. This is quite in-depth, even though the book is not of a daunting size. The pictures included in each chapter help to make visual associations with the words you are learning, which I found to be a useful feature. There are also three additional chapters in the book, which cover how to reinforce you progress, menu guides and a very short English-Arabic dictionary, which I imagine will come in useful on my travels.

The CD in the book is easy to use and clear, it really aided me in figuring out the pronunciation of words which is very different in Arabic to English. There are sounds that a very hard for the English speaker to make, but the book covers the best way to go about learning to say these. I feel like I’m learning already, and should be well equipped for my trip to Marrakech over Easter!

So, as they would say in Arabic,

Shukran!!

Thank you for reading my review!