Al-Kitaab fii Tacallum al-cArabiyya with Multimedia

I've been speaking Arabic at home since I was born but I never learned how to read, write or speak Modern Standard Arabic. In taking classes at my University, I found this book and its 1st part very helpful. It explains the grammar in a general way which can be well understood by English speakers and I have used it through out my classes. Great book!

I’m not too sure who’s gone through the painstaking process of ensuring that there isn’t any writing, marks, creases, or rips in this book, but they are appreciated. The book was exactly as described, included CDs, and shipped extremely fast. Most importantly, the book was reasonably priced. Furthermore, the CDs work properly and are essentially brand new! A wonderful experience with wonderful sellers.

I've tried like 10 different textbooks to learn Arabic (the constant excuse for not making progress is that obviously the book is bad), and this one beats all the others by far. The materials are interesting and contemporary, the dvds are fantastic - it makes learning much more fun if you can actually see people talking. The best Arabic language school I've been to, in Yemen, also uses this book.

Arrived on time in decent packaging, and the book isn't falling apart. However, seller failed to mention that the book has been thoroughly used and written on, which would have been helpful to know as this is a workbook full of exercises, which makes the book less useful and effective than it would be without the writing. However, this is only ~30% of the book, and not a dealbreaker for me. There is no CD, but I expected this as the seller did disclose that aspect of the book. I needed the book quickly and cheaply and this fulfilled what I needed.

With the assistance of an Arabic teacher, this is definitely the best book around. It's very helpful; the pace of learning increases gradually so it remains easy to keep up throughout the series. It's never overloaded with information and grammatically it's spot on. Recognized as one of the top (usually THE top) Arabic language series.

At my university in California, native-speaking professors are not allowed to teach classes in which the Al-Kitaab series is used unless they've received special training to get aquatinted with it. I've heard this is a requirement at some other schools as well. When they begin teaching, many complain about the way these books present the Arabic language (and sympathize when students whine the morning after homework). The most frustrating flaw of this book is that there is NO grammar glossary. Grammar (extremely tedious in Arabic) is spread throughout each chapter, so it's impossible to review unless you literally flip through every page to find what you're looking for. I often have each finger of one hand holding the page where a related grammar concept is hidden. This makes studying for tests very difficult. I recommend carrying 10 bookmarks.Be warned that the vocabulary lists in each chapter Al-Kitaab pt. 2 (this book) are about 4-5 times larger than in book one. Some chapters have 60 words to memorize. This volume also changes the order that it presents conjugation charts. Why does this matter? Well, when you've been memorizing a year's-worth of verb forms in a specific form order (in Al-Kitaab pt. 1), to suddenly shuffle that chart order around while introducing more and more forms...doesn't help at ALL!Lastly, dialogs are key to learning any language, and this book ignores them completely. Instead, you've given mundane texts to translate, which doesn't effectively teach anything because it just makes you go back to the chapter glossary to look words up. The reason people learn languages better in foreign countries is because of the language is in context. This book does not present anything in context. One positive is that the vocabulary lists are at least usable (with the exception of the word "aesthetic" in chapter 4). These books have potential and try to be helpful ( I've met two of the authors, who are both very nice), but lack very fundamental student aids. I recommend searching Amazon for a more user-friendly book, and if you're not buying this for a class, it would be smart to switch to colloquial Arabic now that you know some basic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA/Foosha). Peace.ps: The only Maha and Khalid you see in this book are in the colloquial section of the DVDs, which the text doesn't go into, so most students won't even know they're there. You can also say goodbye to the English-Arabic dictionary in the back.

Should be better Arabic learning texts out there, but Brustad is pretty much it. Cam in a timely manner. I was still attending university at the time. Timeliness for delivery was important and this distributor came through.

Explains the arabic grammar very well! I just wish they had practice tests at the end of each chapter. Ither than that it is a great grammar book!