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Yeah, I understand. I can remember pronunciation much better years later because I heard a native speaker say it correctly the first time. Now that I'm used to diacritics, I don't worry so much. Except when it's the Quran and it's all complicated.

Try this? It's worked for me before, but haven't really used it for Arabic.

It's not a book on translation specifically, but Jim Price is great with the finer points of Arabic grammar <em>All the Arabic You Never Learned the First Time Around</em> (pdf).

[Runak Husni and Daniel Newman's <em>The A-Z of Arabic-English-Arabic Translation</em> (Amazon) is also a good introduction to translation problems unique to Arabic-English.

The former will help improve the grammatical and semantic accuracy of your translations, whereas the latter will help you convey the natural idiomaticity of the material better.

> I want convincingly Arabic-sounding phonemes (ideally perfectly accurate, such that if someone worked it backwards they could get back to the original)

In that case, it might be easier if you simply ask for suggestions if it's only a couple of words.

As for طقوس it can mean ritual and is indeed stressed on the second syllable. I.e. a simplified transliteration would be toKOOS. (Most linguists would transliterate it as ṭuqūs.)

To give you an idea what it sounds like, visit the Acapela TTS demo website, select Arabic as the language and Nizar as the speaker. Then paste the Arabic text into the text box and click Listen.

Looks and reads better now. Although I would say there is still something off about it but can't put my finger on it.

In case you didn't know, the script used in the Saudi flag is called the Thuluth. You can get some inspiration from other material written in Thuluth. It will probably help you clean the design a bit.

EDIT: Apologies if I am being too critical. Your design is great, just trying to help out ;) . Also considering that the majority of people who will vote for it in the thread will be non-Arabic speakers/readers they will likely not find it as odd-looking as I did since it looks like that to them to begin with. You'll likely do fine with the design as it is, maybe just clean the ي in يا and make it less "deformed".

Depends. It may not be quite as common as I initially thought. In fact, if /u/PaneerKhuda is correct, it's a first edition print of one of the earliest works of adab ever printed[1]:

>Reception

>The full impact of ‘Iqd al-farīd, inside and outside Andalusia, remains to be investigated. There is a famous statement by a Būyid vizier that is commonly quoted to illustrate the alleged lackluster reception the book met in the Orient (“this is our merchandise brought back to us”), that conveys the dignitary’s disappointment at the absence of authentic Andalusian material from ‘Iqd al-farīd. However, this saying does not do justice to the text’s reception in the East. It was a big success, not just because it remains extant in numerous manuscripts and is frequently excerpted; but also as it was one of the earliest adab works ever printed, and has since been reissued in an amazing number of (mostly non-critical) editions. ‘Iqd al-farīd’s elevated stature in the Arab world is also reflected in its selection, along with al-Jāḥiẓ’s (d. 868 or 869) Kitāb al-bukhalāʼ as the only works of adab included the prestigious “Masterpieces of Islamic Civilization” series, which “was established in order to acquaint non-Muslims with the contribution Islam has given to human civilization as a whole” by means of translations of emblematic books of Arabic and Islamic culture into English.

If it's not worth much and if there's no cool story as to how this ended up in a small town used bookstore, it's yours for whatever you want to pay + shipping costs. If it is worth something substantial, I'm either going to auction it or donate it to a library.

[1] The “Book of the Pearl on the Ruler” in the Unique Necklace by Ibn ʿAbdrabbih: Preliminary Remarks.

al-Kitaab is really not intended for a street-side learner. The grammar is useful, but the vocabulary used to demonstrate is useless for someone who wants to make conversation or get around. Find yourself a dialect text, there are a lot of free resources at https://sites.google.com/site/soyouwanttolearnalanguage/

have you heard of sling tv? i've never used it before, and i'm not learning arabic yet, but during ramadan, i kept seeing their ads on facebook telling me to watch my favorite arab dramas for the holy month lol

https://www.sling.com/arabic

you get a free trial, and after you can pay $25 a month for a lot of different channels or $10 for one channel. i believe they have closed captioning as well.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pedometer.steptracker.calorieburner.stepcounter&amp;hl=ar

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Iraqi-Arabic-MP3-Files/dp/1589011309

I couldn't find many free resources for Iraqi grammar so I gave in and invested in this book. Very good intro, just be aware that it purposefully uses non-standard spellings for words in order to emphasize Baghdadi pronunciation but without telling you it's non-standard, so if you're learning something new check to see if it has a different MSA standard. Other than that I think it's really the perfect intro to Baghdadi. The audio files are pretty useful as well.

Haven't used what /u/sheirfkandeel posted, but looks like a cool tool.

If you willing to throw down the $ for a book, here is an introduction to the Arabic alphabet and elementary reading/writing:

http://www.amazon.com/Alif-Baa-Introduction-Arabic-Letters/dp/1589016327

Al-Kitaab series is not the cheapest, and there is definitely legitimate criticism if you pursue their grammar/language learning books, but Alif Baa was the first book I used and definitely got the job done. DVD is helpful for pronunciation of individual sounds and how they change in some basic combinations as well.

If you are completely new to Arabic, I would suggest you try out Beginner Arabic, else if you have some knowledge of Arabic words and want to practice and familiarize yourself with the MSA vocabulary, check out Arabic Locker. They are both essentially flashcard/quiz apps that are both free and works offline.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.beginnerarabic&amp;hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.arabiclocker