Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum al-'Arabiyya with DVDs: A Textbook for Beginning Arabic, Part One Second Edition 2nd 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.

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.