Elementary Modern Standard Arabic: Volume 1, Pronunciation and Writing; Lessons 1-30

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: This text covers a lot of material and even the small grammatical details. Lessons are easily divided and progress nicely. However, the tapes could be developed more as could some of the lessons. Overall, the book is worth it and is better than the smaller and cheaper books, especially if you want to LEARN ARABIC, not necessarily speak a few phrases.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent advance in the way Arabic is taught
Review: This textbook is designed to cover the first year of instruction in Modern Standard Arabic. It will teach students to read, speak, and write Arabic. The text also provides information about the geography of the Arab world, prominent characters in history, festivities in Arab culture, the media, daily life, and the family. Exercises in comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, and writing attend to both form and meaning and develop functional abilities and knowledge about the Arabic sound, writing, and language systems. The book needs an updating and it will be an excellent book. MOHAMED A ALSIADI,The State University of New jersey,RUTGERS .

Rating:
Summary: Find Something Else
Review: Though some people obviously find this book useful in their study of Arabic, I have not. I used this book for the first two years of Arabic study and found it trying at best. Yes, Arabic is difficult, however this book does not provide desperately needed grammatical explanations. Also, it teaches you random vocabulary that neglects the essentials that normal language books teach you at the beginning. Not to mention the lack of modern type settings, making it more difficult to read the Arabic text.
If you are interested in newspaper Arabic, I recommend Media Arabic published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible layout and typography
Review: Unless you're an accomplish grammarian you should avoid this book at all costs. It's very poorly printed and chock full of arcane grammatical "explanations" that in no way help you learn to speak, read or write Arabic. Avoid!

Rating:
Summary: very helpful!
Review: When I first approached this book it looked extremely dry and boring, as many people have already commented. My intention was to be able to learn Arabic with a view to understanding the Quran and also for daily use. In this respect the book presents the language very succinctly and logically and endows you with a firm foundation in understanding its structure which allows you to go away and generalise very easily; very useful for further learning. This, I think, more than makes up for a more ad hoc approach. After all, MSA is descended from the Quran whose language is extremely mathematically elegant. It only seems right that we try to understand the language at this depth if we are to truly appreciate it.

Rating:
Summary: Slightly Better Than Totally Useless
Review: With my apologies to Peter Abboud (he was my doctoral dissertation chairman at the University of Texas), I am still amazed that I am reading reviews by professors who are still using this book. Dr. Abboud and a committee of Arabic teachers compiled this book in the 1960's in an attempt to present Arabic to the English-speaking audience. Most, if not all, of these committee members were structural linguists--i. e., teach the structure of the language through discreet examples, which can then be generalized to the language as a whole. The overriding strategy of presenting the material was the grammar-translation method (self-explanatory) which was the primary teaching philosophy in use at the time. Since then, other methodologies have emerged with much, much greater success than the grammar translation theory.

I used this book as a student in the 1970's during undergraduate and graduate school, proceeding through the entire series. I can honestly say that after the entire experience of Elementary Modern Standard Arabic, I could recognize very intricate grammatical constructions in Arabic texts, but my lexicon (Arabic vocabulary stored away in the brain) was incredibly lacking. Imagine going through a four year intensive course in a language and not being able to order a meal, express emotion, ask and give directions, exchange personal information beyond name and ages, etc. For language teachers everywhere, this is what your students want to do! They don't want to build theoretical models of a language--they want to be able to use it. A simple analogy is playing on your high school/college football team and doing only pushups in your practice sessions. Sure, your arms will get bigger, but you won't learn much about how to play the game.

So, what does the beginning student of Arabic turn to? A good place to start would be something like "Teach Yourself Arabic", which I have used to great success in many non-academic settings. Or else, one could try out one of the many conversational Arabic programs out there, just to get your feet wet to see if you are really interested in learning this language. I'd recommend Saudi Arabic Urban Hijazi Arabic by Margaret Omar. This is an older, unadorned textbook, but unlike Elementary Modern Standard Arabic, this one has stood the test of time.

And finally, some friendly advice for beginning students of Arabic. If you are in a college/university and have enrolled in Arabic, check the textbook listing before you pay your fees. If Elementary Modern Standard Arabic is the textbook listed, drop the course immediately. If you are a professor of Arabic, for God's sake check out other textual sources before you subject your students to one year of misery. (We in the Arabic teaching profession wonder why there is such a high drop-out rate after the first year....like duh!)