Colloquial Arabic of the Gulf

This new edition of Colloquial Arabic of the Gulf has been revised and updated to make learning this variety of Arabic easier and more enjoyable than ever before.

Specially written by an expert for self-study and classroom use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to spoken Arabic of the Gulf, together with an introduction to reading signs, business cards, advertisements and other realia. No prior knowledge of the language is required.

Each unit presents numerous grammatical points that are reinforced with a wide range of exercises for regular practice. A full answer key can be found at the back as well as useful vocabulary summaries throughout.

Features new to this edition include:

• a ’Cultural Point’ section in each unit on important aspects of Gulf culture, society and history, with photographs and realia
• a ’Reading Arabic’ section in each unit, plus a special appendix on the Arabic script
• comprehensive glossaries, both English-Arabic and Arabic-English, containing all the words in the book
• extra notes on the dialects of Oman.

By the end of this rewarding course you will be able to communicate confidently and effectively in Arabic in a broad range of situations.

Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

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Clive Holes is Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at the University of Oxford. He has published widely on the Arabic language and its dialects and has been teaching it since 1983. He lived and worked in the Gulf for ten years.