Teach Yourself Arabic: A Complete Course for Beginners

Teach Yourself Arabic" sounds like a hokey tourist phrase book or something. Indeed, the "Teach Yourself" series varies a lot, some of the languages are poorly treated, some better. This one is a gem. It is not trivial tourist phrases, but actually goes into grammar, provides good reading comprehension exercises and a fairly well-developed vocabulary. Includes some very useful points like word shapes, a key tool for learning Arabic with its root and measure system. If you are studying Arabic in school, this makes a great supplement. Some of the confusion in textbooks is cleared up here. You need a seperate book to learn the Arabic script, and Awde's "The Arabic Alphabet" is the best.

There are several negative reviews of this book which refer to an earlier edition. The 2003 edition is excellent. It does have English Transliteration to aid with pronunciation but tries to wean you from it quickly by giving you small sections of Arabic text without transliteration. These are great for learning to read and often they are also dialogues covered on the CD's. The book doesn't stop with learning to read signs and newspapers but is a full-fledged primary reader with excerpts from literature. Make sure you get the CD set with the book. I had to return my first copy (actually fortunate, since that was the earlier edition) when I found the references to a CD that I did not have. There are many exercises which are intended for use with the CD's. There is a key to the exercises in the back. I don't know how this book would be for a self-study if I didn't have cause to use the language daily. But, I find the conversational phrases are realistic and useful in my regular interaction with native Arabic speakers. Of course, it is a big advantage being partially immersed, but my progress was nonetheless slow and haphazard until I got this book. I had made no serious prior attempts to learn the script, I'm now reading excerpts from the Qur'an, after less than one month of work. I have used a number of learning resources and this is by far the best I have found for all-around knowledge of Arabic. I recommend a dictionary, however, as the glossary is tiny.

I was a recon soldier with 1-13 Armor batalion in Baghdad. My mom sent me this book and I studied it religiously for about two hours a day and it got me readind and speaking it in a semi-effective manner in just a few weeks. It is written in such a way that teaches how to speak it well. I am currently in college at the top of my arabic class. We use "AL-KITAAB FII AL TAALUM AL ARABIYYA" It's not that good. This is, the only thing is I recommend a book to learn script to supplement this one. Remember to study hard too this isn't a freebie. GOOD LUCK.

After having struggled with Arabic with the help of inadequate materials and making no progress finally I came upon the book of John Smart. And finally I started to make real progress in Arabic!!!Excellent features in this book:- It is relativelly minimalist so that the student is not overburdened with information and can make the course in relativelly short time - all Arabic verb forms are meticulously explained when a form is met in the text- it drops great deal of complex features of Arabic grammar(i`raab) which are not usually marked in the script so that they cannot contribute to the meaning when you are reading. Learning such features can only confuse beginning student- it does not use transliteration nor Arabic short vowel sounds (harakaat)which also never appear in writing except in the Holy Qur'an. It makes learning a little bit more difficult at first, but you can start aquire right habits of script recognition from the very begining. - the book is in Litterary Arabic however the style of its texts is kept close to the colloquial. Dialogues in the book are in the litterary language but approximated to the colloquial in a fashion some Arabic playwrights do.- After finishing this book you can decide whether to go to theArab world and to study colloquial Arabic there "from the mouth of people" in noisy bazaars and cafe's or to continue to study litterary language quietly in your room from books and dictionaries.