A Frequency Dictionary of Arabic: Core Vocabulary for Learners (Routledge Frequency Dictionaries) Paperback – 24 Feb. 2011

This is absolutely my favourite book for learning Arabic. No question. It helps you focus on the most common words and gives you excellent sentence examples so you know how to use them accurately. Like in the Hans Wehr dictionary, in the back, it also organises them according to the root letters, which really helps me understand how words relate to each other and originate their meaning. it also has sections for words in a particular topic area.I have owned the quite heavy original hard copy for several years, and a few months ago I bought the kindle version too because I love this book so much. Now this otherwise heavy book is available on my iPhone any time, without the weight.The rendering of the Arabic letters in the Kindle app is also excellent. By contrast many kindle books don't render Arabic well.

This is an excellent tool for already experienced Arabic learners. Examples and theme lists help very much. Need to know the root of each word though in order to navigate through this book. It helps me a lot!

اللغة العربية جميلةThis is a great book for anyone who is serious about learning this great language. Can’t fault it.

Recommended

I found this book to be a really useful resource. I am a native speaker of Arabic and I found the mix of dialects particularly intriguing as I am currently working on dialect studies. The format of the book can be a little difficult to follow at first when you want to look up a particular word to see if it's there, but after using it a couple of times I've got the hang of it.

For students of Arabic, this frequency dictionary is an excellent way of accumulating vocabulary. The sentence examples are a bit odd every here and there, but they do the trick. Words are also listed according to word class (most frequent adverbs, adjectives etc) which is also helpful.

It's a good book, but let down for me on a personal level because I reckon for learners it would have be better if the example sentences that demonstrated each entry were fully vocalised, although the specific word in question is. Also the Arabic font is very small. Still, it's a useful book.