Al-kitaab fii Ta'allum Al-'Arabiyya

Rating:
Summary: Wow - DVDs bring it alive
Review: I wrote a review for the previous edition of this book in March 2004. The new semester has started, we're using this new edition of the book which I picked up last night before class. This is my immediate response.

1. The text looks pretty similar, maybe cleaned up a little, but the vocabulary, the story of depressed Maha, and the overall structure appear to be similar to the first edition.

2. What's not at all similar is the fact that the book now comes with three DVDs. They contain the video material of Maha's story, and they contain audio for the exercises (previously included on CDs which had to be bought separately). Most valuable of all, I think, is that they contain lots of footage of interviews with real Arabic speakers. There are conversations with real people in the street. There are graduate students talking about what it's like to be a TA (mu'iid). There are *real* high schoolers talking about the pressures of al-thanawiya al-'amma (like European high-school diploma, where performance in a few exams determines what college you get into). I think this really helps bring it all to life. I think this material makes it worth far more than the purchase price.

3. The video stories of Maha and her family have been re-shot, with ridiculously beautiful-looking people. It was easier to believe that the somewhat heavy "old" Maha was frequently lonely. Now Maha is stunningly beautiful, like she just got back from filming Baywatch. Difficult to believe she would be lonely. Same goes for everyone else - everyone is beautiful. It's like a daytime soap. Perhaps they were trying to counteract negative stereotypes of Arabs as poor, living in crowded conditions; or as super-rich, living in unbelievable wealth. This family appears to live like an upper-middle-class American family, with slick haircuts, laptop computers, etc. Perhaps they just need to make the story a little less maudlin (Maha's always lonely, Khaled's mother died two years ago,...)

In all, from my cursory examination last night after class, I think this is fantastic. It's so hard to find real Arabic-language material, this is a great resource.

Rating:
Summary: Worthless, even with the new Maha
Review: The new Maha is indeed a hottie, but that does not make of for the near-total worthlessness of this book. Buy Haywood and Nahmad's "New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language" instead. If you have to get Al-Kitaab for class, get Haywood and Nahmad anyway so that you can get a competent explanation of the grammar.