Learn Levantine Arabic Through Analyzing Feyrouz's Songs

J'ai bien aimé le livre de Rana Makhlouf. Il est un excellent complément aux très belles vidéos qu'elle propose sur YouTube et sur d'autres plateformes. Bonne lecture !

The author produces very high quality videos online that provide unique insight into the Levantine Arabic dialect as spoken primarily in Lebanon and Syria. This book is an excellent source of similar material using the songs of one of the region’s most beloved and well-known singers, Feyrouz. Popular songs, in all languages, often provide great insight into culture and the use of language, insight that is not often available in structured language instruction.The author has taken 20 of Feyrouz’s songs and presents them with both a word-by-word, and a contextual analysis that allows the student to learn and incorporate many new vocabulary items, phrases, and structures into their learning. In addition to the benefit of increasing the student’s colloquial Arabic knowledge and ability, the book provides a comprehensive understanding of many of the singer’s most popular songs, an understanding that is rarely available to language students or heritage speakers that grew up outside of the region.The book itself is laid out in a very readable and accessible format with easy to read fonts for both English and Arabic. The author used a very clear and consistent structure for presenting the material through the book and across all 20 songs. The only thing missing that would have been very useful is a glossary at the end of the book to allow the student to search for examples of specific words within the context of the various songs. That would have provided a secondary role for the book to be used as a reference guide as the student encounters words and phrases outside the context of the songs.As a Linguist, a learner of multiple languages, and a lifetime heritage student of Arabic, I highly recommend this book and all other material produced by the author. She has great insight into the language, specifically the Levantine dialect, and she presents the material very well, both verbally and in written form.

I have been learning Arabic for about two years. It is difficult for an English speaker to understand Arabic because of the pronunciation. With this book you can get the sounds from hearing the songs, much easier, plus you get to know a beautiful singer and poet. Rana has set it out so clearly. It is learning in a super fun way.

The text is in levantine arabic and the explanations are excellent.Very useful book for learning levantine arabic through the lirics of Feiruze,'s songs.