Arabic Proverbs and Wise Sayings (English and Arabic Edition) Paperback – December 31, 2011

There isn't much out there, but this is a pretty good collection of sayings -- the best I've found so far -- which I've incorporated into my Arabic studies. I have found them reliable, because my teachers understand them when I use them. They are very practical and usable sayings, for the most part. I also found that they helped expand my vocabulary in a fun way. I'm not qualified to judge the quality of the selection or the translations, but they seem pretty accurate overall.

a great book, offering many insights into the Arab culture and mindset. Purchase is recommended! Many saying fit all of mankind, whereas some are distinctly fittig for the Arab culture only.

very good book !

Wonderful book. Very useful to have the English alongside the Arabic.

This is a decent book, and the (non-native) author has made a great effort in attempting to both collect and standardise (i.e.put into fusha/MSA) many idioms, proverbs and sayings.However, I went through this book with my teacher. My teacher is not only a native Arab, but a master of both English and Arabic. He spent 16 years at Al-Azhar, graduating from the faculty of languages. Additionally, he has two masters in linguistics from Western Universities.Anyway, we went through this book and, in his opinion, only 40% of what is here are bona fide idioms/proverbs. He did mention some of them are very good and the author has clearly put some effort into this as mentioned. However, it would be wise to study this book with a very experienced and proficient Arabic teacher (it took me about 2hrs to go through the book with my teacher simply to pick out the genuine idioms and proverbs).

ことわざが羅列してあるだけで，英語の対応するのがついてありますが，単純訳がついてあるだけで意味が分からないのもあります．どのような場面で使うかといったことが時たまに，本の少しだけふれてありますが，それだけです．文化的な背景等を記したエッセイ的な部分などはありません．ローマ字転写も見慣れないものでした．