Complete Arabic: Teach Yourself (Book/CD Pack)

I received this today but in just a few hours I'm already well on my way to being able to use the alphabet, can greet people in a number of different ways and have a better understanding of the language and the Middle Eastern and North African cultures. If you have used a Teach Yourself book before you'll be familiar to the high quality of their courses and this is upheld here. From first impressions the speed of the course is very fast, as you'd expect from a small book promising to take beginners up to A level proficiency; the dense and concise nature of the text means you cover many critical points within each page. This does mean you can accidentally skip important points quite easily but revising each chapter a number of times is recommended anyway. I would recommend buying the CD edition of this book because of the significant differences between Arabic and English: you can get away with just the book for French, German, Italian etc but for a language so alien I would recommend the CD or, if possible, a native Arabic speaker: conveying the difference between daal and dhaal is nigh on impossible to convey without sound, but the explanation here without the CD is sufficiently, if not immediately, clear. The book itself is sturdy and clear, with a fairly large font size and the odd picture to break up the text. It is printed in blank and white (unlike the other TY course I own, Italian) but this doesn't detract from the quality of the printing. In conclusion if you are looking to study Arabic at your own speed this is a very clear but well paced in-depth course: you are rather plunged in very quickly there is nothing to stop you taking as long as you need for every paragraph. For what it does, namely making you almost fluent, this is very well priced book and I would recommend it completely; however do think about buying the book and CD combo for the reasons explained above. EDIT For pronunciation of the alphabet, at least, go to the BBC Languages website, they have a very good guide to the Arabic alphabet.

This course comes with a large paperback book (400+ pages) and two CDs. I've been doing it for two weeks and I'm enjoying it, and feel I can already say quite a few basic phrases in Modern Standard Arabic. The CD really adds to it, and I would definitely say that if you are going to buy this course, then buy it with the CDs (instead of just the book), as Arabic pronunciation and phonology is very different from any Indo-European language, and this is where the CDs become essential. The book aims to give you a B2 level in Arabic by the end of the course. The only thing I'd say is that there is a slight focus towards listening and speaking rather than towards reading and writing. I personally value these skills as much as listening and speaking when learning a language, and although the Arabic is given, the transliteration of the Arabic (the Arabic word in Latin script) seems to be preferred by this course. I would also advise that as Arabic is so different from any European language, vocabulary can take a while to sink in as there is no similarity, that you write down the new vocabulary in each unit and make sure you know it well before progressing to the next unit. As a whole, I've been really impressed by this course, and look forward to keep working my way through the course. Bittawfiq!

New and as expected! Talking about the content of the books I think they are excellent for those who one to go to Arabic countries and learn the basics of the Quran language. But if you want a solid arabic language to understand Quran, you might as well try 'Madinah Arabic Course: for English speaking studnets'. And follow these videos on youtube (better save everything before hand): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0456AF8AB89FD3CF Chech for Book1, 2, and 3. Honestly I'd only try one quarter for Book 1 and its good. So far

This is fantastic - I bought it as an extra Christmas present for my husband as he had mentioned in passing that he would love to study arabic. He was surprised and delighted.

I couldn't really get into this book found another way to learn much easer

This book is very detailed (almost 500 pages) and does exactly what it says ,ie. every thing you need to speak read and write Arabic

worth it. be patient and persevere as with all of these type of teaching tools.

Very difficult to follow.

Very helpful book for learning Arabic. Worth investment.

Great book. Really helped me with Arabic Script. Not easy to master, but book is clear, concise and helpful.

Good

A very good ,easily learnable book..

Easy to learn Arabic and very useful