Teach Yourself Arabic Complete Course

This is a very effective book, it shows the culture and has applicable scenarios

Great. I recommend it for language learners, especially Arabic learners. It arrived in excellent condition. I can't wait to get started.

I had taken a six week intensive course in Iraqi Arabic in the military a few years ago, and ordered this with the intention of refreshing and maybe adding to what I knew. This course, like most of the "Teach Yourself" courses is wonderful. It works to provide a solid foundation before moving on to actual phrases. It's so difficult to really get all the sounds in Arabic correct and the audio CD helps immensely with this. It would be even better if they offered a video DVD supplement, but I'm sure that's in the works. Lessons are very well organized and really allows you to learn at your own pace.

I really liked this book when it was the older addition but the 2001-2003 edition is horrible. Too much transliteration seems to be the one stressed to read instead of trying to learn the actual script, which ruins it; you used to have to try to think about the script in doing the lessons as well, to help you learn to both read and write in Arabic. In the older versions, yes, there were words that you didn't need to know and some political mish-mosh but the good things about them were they forced you with every exercise to think about and use what words you just learned in the lesson and the previous lessons. Its the thinking process that mattered, not the words totally.***UPDATE****UPDATE***I was pretty harsh in my review of this book but considering this book has like, 5-6 revisions and Amazon NEVER or takes forever to change the pics to reflect the newer editions or the editions use the same pics; you can't tell which one you are doing. Having said that, I must retract my former review. I sheepishly admit that when I first looked at this copy, I rather hastily thumbed thru it and found all the faults I had with it and delved no further. But it kinda bugged me and since there are so few Arabic resources, especially inexpensive ones, I had to look at it again. I realized I had made a grave mistake. After looking at several lessons as a whole and going thru it chapter by chapter, I have to say I actually like it and more than I thought I could/would. These books at first were not really marketed toward the super serious learner who would probably go on to learn more from another source. They were mainly geared to people who were going on a trip for an extended visit, wanted to chat with in-laws or locals, or wanted to dabble in knowing a language ok but not 100% and impress their friends.There is a method in how the book is laid out and why they included some things from old editions and why they threw out most of it. One of the new things they do, is omit the vowel markings from jump street. So starting at page one, you are on your own if you want to read it by Arabic script and not transliteration, which I like but the thing that bugs me is that the transliteration is so prominent and in your face the way they have it on the page, you automatically focus on those words first and not the script.However, where TY is starting to differ and improve, is that they have been learning over the past 6 or so years, that they are getting people who are truly serious about learning another language and are gearing their newer editions for people who want to continue on and actually become fluent. As a result, each edition has gotten better and better; they got rid of a lot of the "fluffy nonsense" they used to have before. It used to be about hotels, visas, restaurant ordering, booking a car, etc. Not so much anymore. They do have some of that because let's face it, you will have to learn that at some point plus its just good to know!Now, they are more relevant to today's situations and has useful phrases that you will actually need and want to say/learn. It has a lot more practical usage of vocabulary and phrases than before. They have gotten rid of the political, useless dialog and have made you read and learn the script earlier on than in previous editions. You start having to read Arabic script as a whole, by lesson 6; before it wasn't until almost the last 3 or 4 chapters of the book. So if you don't know the script, I suggest you get the Beginning Arabic script book in the series along with it. Not every TY book is perfect and I have to remember, as well you should, too, is that the books and CD's are no substitute for getting out there and learning the language first hand, i.e. using it and speaking to native speakers! Without that, no matter what course you buy, French, Italian, Croat, Russian, etc, even the best structured course is totally useless.Please don't not skip buying this course because of bad reviews especially if you know NO Arabic at all and want to learn something. Buy it with an open mind and just do the work before passing judgment like I did. If you don't know any Arabic at all, you can't help but learn a lot before the course is through, so you will be the best winner vs. some of us who already have a language or two under our belt and look at these programs with a more critical eye. As someone once said to me, every course good or bad, has something you can glean from it whether it be grammar or pronunciation or placement...whatever. All courses can yield something you didn't know before and maybe you wouldn't have known if you hadn't gotten it. I think that is true. If you want to continue on with the language you chose, get some supplemental material, like a good dictionary, a phrase book and another course in the language. Another course is good because every teacher is different and you learn more with each course. Anyway, that is my take and I am glad that I can come back and amend this one.

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.

Nice book