Arabic – Egyptian Dialect
Language Resources
MENTOR
I found my mentor through a friend in the Arab Student Association at UW-Madison, a great place to find a native speaker for any of the dialects. I’ve heard iTalki and Preply are good places to find mentors that are trained and experienced language mentors. With Egyptian Arabic, particular sound pronunciation is a big factor so finding a mentor who will correct you and drill you with back and forth with phrases will be good. Some sounds require muscles that have never been used before! Chapter 4 in Marshall’s guide provides helpful conversation topics and cultural know-hows to prepare for mentor meetings. I try to prepare a set of vocab and phrases that correspond to the topic of the conversation I want to practice for each mentor meeting. We start by reviewing the previous weeks conversation and then I record my mentor speaking the new phrases and vocab to review later.
WEBSITES/MEDIA
General resources
- Arabic Language Kitchen: A plethora of resources for learning and finding mentors.
Grammar and vocab reference
- Arabic Desert Sky: Excellent website to reference vocab lists and grammar rules with Arabic script and franco (a system of using the Latin alphabet and numbers to replace certain Arabic letters to write, phonetically, what Arabic words sound like).
Audio
- Rocket Arabic: A good website for working on pronunciation. They have audio for vocab lists and conversations.
- Salis – Learn Egyptian Arabic podcast: Short (5-15min) episodes that go over specific topics and instances you may encounter in Egypt.
- Lisaan Masry: Helpful for quickly finding a word and hearing the pronunciation.
- Pimsleur Audio CDs (also in an app): Great for improving listening comprehension and speaking skills.
- Short story, provided audio, arabic script, and english translation.
BOOKS
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This is a term-phrase book made by and for the U.S. Navy that has lessons and exercises.
Egyptian-Arabic. (1984). [Washington, D.C.?] : [U.S. Naval Military Personnel Command], [1984?]. https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999654528102121 -
A reference grammar of Egyptian Arabic.Abdel-Massih, Ernest T. A Reference Grammar of Egyptian Arabic. Washington, DC :Georgetown University Press, 2009.
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A small handbook that includes 16 lessons and uses an easy to follow Romanized alphabet.McGuirk, Russell H., 1946-. Colloquial Arabic of Egypt. London ; Boston :Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.
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A handbook with lessons and exercises that uses Arabic and Roman letters.Tewfik, L. Y. (1963). Lessons in colloquial Egyptian Arabic. Revised edition by Richard S. Harrell. Laila Y. Tewfik [and] George D. Selim. [Washington] : Georgetown University Press, 1963. https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999698493502121
- An introductory handbook with lessons and exercises. Mitchell, T. An Introduction to Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. New York :Oxford University Press, 1956.
