The New Syriac Primer: An Introduction to The Syriac Language (Gorgias Handbooks) (English and Syriac Edition)

This by far is my favorite book to learn Syriac. The lessons are short and easy, the list of words used during a lesson are simple and straightforward. My favorite feature of the book that I have not seen in other books is the use of both Arabic and Hebrew letters instead of just hebrew, this makes it a whole lot easier for me as an Arabic speaker to fully grasp the pronunciation of the letter. My only critique is that when they show you how to write a letter or a word, there is no space on the book itself to write, as in you need to write on a separate piece of paper. *Bonus Point* as most people already mentioned, the selling factor of this book was the audio. Now I did not receive a CD but I did get a piece of paper with the link to the audio files. When I first accessed the site (you have to make a profile), I only downloaded three files and then logged out. When I logged back in again I couldn't find the rest. So I e-mailed the help-desk and the next day, I got a reply with an attachment to all the audio files! That was great customer service as I was feeling hopeless that I would have any access to the lost audio files. That's why I am giving them five stars.الصراحة أنا كنت أريد كتاب يعلمني لغة السريانية بالعربي ولكن ما حصلت كتاب. لحسن حظي مريت على هذا الكتاب وأشتريته وعجبني كثير لأنه سهل، ومباشر، والكلمات في الدروس سهلة ومتناسقة مع الخطة الدراسية والشيء الذي عجبني أكثر استخدام الحروف العربية بجانب الحروف السريانية حتى اللفظ للحرف يكون أدق وأتوقع يمكن لأن الكاتب سوري فله خلفية عربية. الشيء الذي جذبني للكتاب وجود ملفات صوتية تقدر تصل إليهم من خلال موقعهم. أنصحكم بهذا الكتاب لو تريدون أن تتعلمون السريانية.

Excellent book for beginners starting from zero in Syriac. Takes student through 2 college semesters.

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I've been wanting to learn Syriac for some time, but have been a bit intimidated by the available materials. So I was very happy to find this excellent text book.Dr. Kiraz is, I suspect, and very engaging teacher. It's rare to find myself laughing out loud when studying a classical language, but Dr. Kiraz makes the process profoundly enjoyable.He gives a graded introduction to the script - probably the hardest thing for many beginners - and the teaches major grammatical concepts clearly through a series of his own exercises. The 6th chapter of the book then gives extended reading from a wide range of ancient and modern Syriac literature.An additional help is audio materials supporting all the readings in the book - these audio recordings can be downloaded from the Gorgias Press website, and are invaluable to get pronunciation, cadence, and a "feel" for the language. The book is also significantly less expensive direct from Gorgias...This book is, of course, introductory, and I'm moving on to more advanced grammars before I get to the Peshitta new testament. But as an introduction to rich, fascinating, and beautiful language, the text book has no peer that I've seen.