Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #115842 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Language Notes
Text: English, Arabic

Customer Reviews

Not for self study
Perhaps if you are studying with a teacher this book would merit another star. However, it does not help much with learning vocabulary. I also agree with a previous reviewer that the Michigan text, although dated, offers clearer explanations of the grammar and with its accompanying tapes is much more helpful for self-study.

"Constructivist" methodology wastes students' time
Much research has recently shown why "constructivist" methodology is inefficient, and this book provides ample empirical evidence. Students are expected to guess the meaning of words, and to help them out, much vocabulary has neither definitions in the text nor in the glossary. The learner can spend endless hours looking up the words rather than learning Arabic. It is certainly not reassuring to just guess the words, the learner ought to have clear definitions. Since so much vocabulary is left up in the air, the book requires a teacher working extra hard, since students cannot do work alone. By the way, amazon is selling a key for exercises, but this is unacceptable. One spends a lot of money on this book and must then buy another book to learn from it. Also, the book assumes the student can figure out fast enough unvoweled Arabic and gives copious texts. Students require hours and hours of tedious reading that ultimately has little to do with live language. Great way to drop out of Arabic!
The revised version has DVDs with visuals aside from readings. But this is no help at all. Watching people recite Arabic in middle-age clothing does not help decipher the missing vocabulary.
Anyone teaching themselves should pick one of the many books available. And Arabic teachers should look at other series. For 20 years, the standard textbook was Michigan Modern Standard Arabic, 3 volumes with tapes. The texts are dated, but the book works very well.

Not as much help as I had hoped...
I was under the impression that this would be an answer key for more drills than just the listening drills. All that it does is fill in the blanks of the single listening drill per chapter of the second Al-Kitaab fi' Ta'allum al-'Arabiya book. This is only minimally helpful.
Ideally I would have wanted an answer key to the rest of the drills, so that I could make sure that the hours I spend doing drills isn't in vain. (I currently spend hours doing the drills incorrectly).