Teach Yourself Arabic (book and double CD pack)

As other reviewers have commented, the structure of this book is not ideal, but it offers excellent practice material, such as clippings from newspapers or magazines with vocabulary lists. These can be used to complement other methods which are more structured and have more focus on grammar. I used this book together with Wightwick&Gaafar's "Mastering Arabic" to get through beginners level.

Confusing and not well structured (7/7 people found this helpful)

I got this book from the library, in fact, it was the only one available. As someone with a bit of knowledge of the Arabic language and some other Arabic books at home, I found this one very confusing.
All short vowels, case endings and signs for double consonants are left out completely (to make it easier??), which would be a great help at the beginning in order to understand how Arabic grammar and script works, and also because it makes it easier to recognise the word meaning without having to guess from the context.
Also, sometimes the written word and it's transliteration do not match and as there is no explanation, so one doesn't know if it's simply a mistake or not.
Lastly I found the layout of the book difficult to understand and missed a bit of structure.

On the positive side, with the help of this book I managed to reactive my knowledge quite quickly, but because of the above problems I would only give it 2 stars and definitely try to work with another book that explains basic grammar in depths.

My tip: Get 'Mastering Arabic', a book that is much better structured and also teaches you everything you need to know when beginning with Arabic!

Good, but different to alternate titles (16/21 people found this helpful)

Although the TY range is very useful and has a straightforward pronunciation guide. This has to be the most difficult ever!

I would reccomend an interested buyer to purchase this product with the audio to avoid confusion. The layout and system is very 'alien' compared to other titles. Its very confusing, and it is easy to lose yourself with the audio. The pronunciation guide is quite poor and doesn't describe gutteral sounds properly.Pronunciation is quite difficult and is a toigh wall which can easily make a raw-beginner lose hope and abandon the subject. However it is still learning material, and it does have good use.

FINE Start (31/32 people found this helpful)

As a beginner in Arabic have tried Al-Kitaab (nightmare book - crammed with exercises, irrelevant vocab lists - v. much a deep end education) and the Palgrave books (Grammar and Script, not the full course) the latter being excellent thus far.

This book is crystal clear in its objectives and takes the reader at a solid-steady pace. The CD with it is a MUST and is EXCELLENT (though the tracks should, ideally, be more segregated - all the exercises within each chapter are on one track - would save much forwarding etc).

All in all a BRILLIANT resource for the beginner or those looking to brush up on the grammar. Highly reccomended. Again - haven't yet invested in the Palgrave Macmillan book (the full Arabic book) which also comes with a CD and have heard is also excellent, but so far this pulls up another stonking winner for the Teach Yourself series.

* * * * * 5 Stars.

Teach Yourself Arabic (book and double CD pack)

Jack Smart, Frances Altorfer

Reader Reviews:

Useful practice material (1/1 people found this helpful)

Confusing and not well structured (7/7 people found this helpful)

Good, but different to alternate titles (16/21 people found this helpful)

FINE Start (31/32 people found this helpful)

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