Thread: Arabic Book

Can anyone recommend me an arabic book, perhaps an equivalent of The New Penguin Russian Course in quality? I'm trying to learn Arabic well enough to skip out of Elementary Arabic 1 in my college so I can start taking Elementary Arabic II as they aren't offering Elementary Arabic 1 in the second semester. I would really like to start learning Arabic as early as possible.

I wish you all the best in your studies and here is my recommendation :
Book title:Standard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course
Author: Eckehard Schulz
It is available at Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0521774 ... eader-page

This book may work for true arab (or maybe he's just a stockholder), but...

I bought this book on the recommendation here, and I can say that I am about to take it to the used bookstore. I have studied many languages, including one non-European one, so I have experience with language teaching and learning. This book is not good for independent study. It requires a teacher, or even an audio CD might help, which is not there. There is just about no instruction on how to write the Arabic characters, I mean, it shows you them (in 10-point type), but it does not show you the stroke sequences. The whole book is premised on a teacher being present who can show you this and also pronounce the words, and correct your pronunciation.

I think that sometimes I tend to be a little too pedantic in teaching, but this book is way more over the edge than I am. I think it's the German zeal for exactitude.

I would not recommend this book for anyone.

Go to Amazon.com and look at booklists suggested by readers.

Yo chaika, I used "Colloquial Arabic of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia." It was cool and all, with the tape, but I lost interest in it. About the script, you'd be best off buying a book devoted to it, or trying an online tutorial for it(the book I just mentioned does not use Arabic script, BTW). It's really not that hard to learn.