Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum al-'Arabiyya with DVDs: A Textbook for Beginning Arabic, Part One Second Edition

I'm a little confused by some of the negative reviews of this book, particularly the one in which the reviewer complained that he couldn't tell someone his name in Arabic after reading several chapters, or the many people who have ridiculed the book for introducing the Arabic expression for "United Nations" in chapter 1. If you are thinking of purchasing this book, you should be very clear: This is NOT a casual phrase-book for travelers who are going to the Middle East for a week and need to know how to find the bathroom or order a plate of chicken. This is a serious university-level language textbook intended to accompany a two-year program of introductory and intermediate Arabic, and is designed to be used with the accompanying DVD as well as the introductory primer "Alif Baa," which introduces the reader to the alphabet as well as to basic phrases such as "My name is..." and "Where is the...?" It is NOT designed or intended to be used by the self-learner studying at home alone. We are using this textbook (along with Alif Baa) in my college class, and after only 8 weeks I am amazed at how much Arabic I can read, write, and understand. The textbook is well organized, the DVD materials are helpful, and when combined with regular classroom lectures (three times a week in my case), I think it does a great job of introducing this very unfamiliar language to English-speakers. It's as good, if not better, than any other language textbook I have ever used. My only reason not to recommend it is that the authors are supposedly coming out with a third edition sometime in 2011 that will have updated online resources, so if you don't need it right away, I would advise waiting for the next version.

I have been trying to learn Arabic for years and this book has truly helped me. This book is great to teach yourself with, the only thing is you have to be motivated (which I think is true, regardless of what book you buy). It does not teach you touristy Arabic, but actual real standard Arabic (and a little of colloquial Egyptian). It gives you a great deal of vocabulary, and the DVD tells you how to pronounce everything... in a way it is like taking a class because the DVD gives a story in Arabic. If you are teaching yourself, I recommend you buy the answer key with this. The only downside is that the answer key does not have answers to all of the problem sets. So, what I did is skipped the problem sets that don't have answers (but if you know someone who can tell you what is right or wrong, then you can do them all). If you finish this book, you can hold an actual intellectual conversation with others in Arabic.

Book came in good condition and included the DVD as advertised. Shipping was also fast and the book was packaged well.

The idea that one can learn Arabic on one's own is, quite frankly, insane and just plain stupid. It's not going to happen. And if you're taking an Arabic class, chances are you'll be using this book. There's just no way out of it. It's a decent book but previous comments about the grammar instruction are spot-on. While all the guys in my class find Maha 'hot,' both genders agree that she is annoying and pathetic. Khaled is a bit better. The DVDs are great learning tools and the best way to figure out how to accurately pronounce the vocabulary-- if they didn't try to sneak in extra vocabularly throughout the chapter. You do develop a rather strange set of vocabulary without much rhyme or reason to it. Watch the DVDs *before* class to get the most out of them. Remember two things before you drop your Al Kitaab out the window to fall on the head of some poor unsuspecting German language student: 1) It's called 'the book' for a reason. Right now, this is the best we've got. 2) Arabic is a tough language and it's not at all intuitive to non-natives. In French, you can often guess half the words. Not so with Arabic. Thus, as the preface tells you, you need to be studying 2-3hrs for every hour of class you have. Few people actually put this time in; those that don't suffer the consequences. No textbook can teach you Arabic if you're not willing to do the work yourself. My recommendation for learning Arabic would be to start with an intensive, find a great teacher, forget you have a real life, make friends with your classmates, and get a tutor. Learning Arabic isn't a summer project-- it's a multiyear commitment. Don't bother with it unless you're really passionate about learning it because the payoffs can be a long time coming. This book, however, can work. I've seen several students go through the sequence and come out with an impressive knowledge of the language. A lot depends on the instructor.

Definitely not for the absolute beginner. If you are an absolute beginner, you need to get the Alif Baa book, AND study other sources as well, otherwise you will be lost and struggle. It is a good quality book and DVD. However, you will go slowly, even after having gone through the Alif Baa book. It would be helpful if there were some kind of "in-between" book. It has grammar, which Rosetta stone doesn't provide.

1] The book was missing a DVD !! It contains DVD-2 (chapters 8-14) and DVD-3 (chapters 15-20) .. no DVD-1 that should be associated with chapters 1-7. 2] The book begins with Arabic at the very beginning - without any introduction to the alpabet! This is an amazing deficiency for a beginner's book.

This book was a great price ($9). It was in excellent shape. It would have been very useful to me in my Arabic class had there not been a mix up on my end about the edition of the book I needed. However, I was shocked that this book had even been used because there was no writing or marks and the pages didn't have any bends in it. I was very satisfied with the quickness of the shipping and even though I wasn't able to use it for class, I now have a great reference book for Arabic so yes I appreciate the seller and the product and I would buy from them again.

Al-Kitaab is the international standard for learning Arabic. I have taken Arabic courses both in the United States and in Morocco. As a result of these experiences, I have been forced into a close connection with the Al-Kitaab series. Through these study experiences, I have concluded that although Al Kitaab is the textbook used worldwide, the market is open for more Arabic textbooks to easily take the cake, so to speak. However, Al-Kitaab does have some positive factors; you will probably be forced to use it in your studies, so prepare. On a side note, I used Alif Baa, the primer, and did not find it particularly helpful, learning Arabic script in some other manner is satisfactory IF you have a native speaker that can help you, as I did. Positives: -Organized Chapter Setting is Consistent -Grammar: My negative review finds little fault with the grammar in Al-Kitaab. On the whole, the grammar sections are informative, and the practice sections for the grammar are useful and help with quickly learning both the easy and difficult aspects of the Arabic language. -Understanding: This book understands that the Arabic language is DIFFICULT to learn for English speakers, therefore it goes at a necessary pace regarding GRAMMAR only. Negatives: -VOCABULARY: This book is vocabulary deficient. The vocabulary is based off of the storyline of Maha, which is present in each chapter. This being said, the vocabulary is not comprehensive, nor is it presented in a logical fashion. I agree with the reviewer that said he did not know how to say his name. For example, the first chapter begins by teaching you how to say "United Nations" but does little to clearly point out articles, colors (presented disjointly), days of the week (presented later), or other beginning information and sentence structures. Furthermore, this vocabulary is not often understood in Arabic cultures: read the section on dialect. -DIALECT: Arabic language is difficult because Modern Standard Arabic is not spoken. At all. Anywhere. It is only found in the Qur'an and in formal writing. Dialect reigns supreme. Al-Kitaab does a good job at incorporating some Egyptian dialect, which is often used in filmography, yet this pattern of introduction of dialect is inconsistent. The book does allow for listening activities in Egyptian to notice the differences between Egyptian and Modern Standard but does little to explain the formation of such dialect. Thus, if you do master Arabic via this book, you gain the ability to converse via your knowledge of Modern Standard, which makes it easier to learn dialect, yet the presentation of tools for dialect-learning are absent. -ROOTS: Arabic is a root-based language. Thus, if you learn the root system, learning the rest of the language is easy. I mean it. This hard language is solved through the root system, which was taught to me by a combination of Arab friends and teachers. The book explains the root system briefly, yet does not present a comprehensive section allowing for the formation of roots in a repetitive manner so as to best present the tools for learning the Arab language. On the whole, you'll probably need to buy this one anyway. Just don't expect to learn Arabic by yourself via this book, but rather as a tool for an intensive study of the language with a competent professor using his or her OWN lesson plans, not those in the book.

I really like this book, and there is a website for videos and more

Hierbei handelt es sich um das einzig brauchbare Arabischlehrwerk, welches sich derzeit auf dem Markt befindet. Sowohl früher als Lernende, als auch heute als Lehrende, habe ich sehr viele Lehrbücher- und werke kennengelernt und selbst die neue Ausgabe von Al-Kitaab kann dieser hier nicht das Wasser reichen. Es wird mit authentischen Materialien gearbeitet und es werden Themen behandelt, die auch für westliche Lernende attraktiv sind, es werden auch keine Klischees gedroschen, sondern vielfältive Aspekte des täglichen Lebens einer arabischen Familie in San Francisco beleuchtet. Der Grammatikteil ist logisch aufgebaut, sehr gut erklärt und beschrieben und es gibt sehr viele Übungen. Für Selbstlernende gibt es einen Schlüssel, der aber extra erworben werden muss. Die CD beinhaltet Hörtexte, Übungen, aber auch den Wortschatz, welcher in Sätzen eingebettet präsentiert wird. Ein weiterer positiver Aspekt dieses Buches ist, dass sofort mit arabischer Schrift gearbeitet wird, die Kenntnis dieser wird vorausgesetzt. Wer diese noch nicht kann, ist mit Alif Baa, dem ersten Part dieser Lehrwerkserie gut bedient. Dort wird am arabischen Schrifterwerb gearbeitet. Wer also ernsthaft die arabische Sprache erwerben will und nicht nur ein paar Sätzchen für Touristenzwecke lernen möchte, kommt an diesem Werk nicht vorbei. Es eignet sich besonders gut für den Unterricht (wobei die englische Sprache vorausgesetzt werden muss), aber auch für Selbstlernende, die bereits Alif Baa hinter sich haben.

This is the MSA book used in universities and language schools around the world. There's not much I can say that hasn't been said.

I'm doing an intermediate Arabic module for my second year at University. Before I say anything about the book, I would mention that this is coming from the point of view of someone who is in no way fluent, but can read and write Arabic with little problems (I can't speak except very basically). When I first opened the book, it baffled me because there was relatively little in the way of English (compared to other Arabic textbooks (and trust me- I have seen more than my fair share of those)). That's not to say there's no English- all of the instructions are in English, and there are vocab translations (as well as a Eng-Arabic AND Arabic-Eng mini dictionary at the back). From lesson one you have to make use of the provided DVD's. Instead of translating every word, they use the word in context of a sentence (which you may or may not understand). I found this amazingly helpful because it taught me HOW to use the word, and trained my ear to the language. I've never come across this approach in other textbooks or DVD's, but it is definitely more helpful toward actually learning how to speak the language. The enunciation is easy to understand, and the format of the book is approachable and easy to use. Having had many textbooks forced on me when I was younger, I think I've finally found one that at once challenges and guides at exactly the right level. If you are familiar with the alphabet and very basic word/sentence formation, this book is ideal for continuing your studies. If, like me, you are ahead of this level, but with extremely gappy knowledge (and little in the way of vocab), this is perfect for keeping you interested, whilst actually being informative. I would definitely recommend it.

Très bien. Très complet.