Rating: 
Summary: Great Book for Directed Study Course
Review: Alif Baa is a great book for using in a directed study course in learning to read and write the Arabic language. This is a good workbook with great practice drills for learning to read and write the Arabic language. The book is presented in logical pattern, however, a few of the exercises include the use of letters before they are covered in the book. If you're taking a couse in Arabic from a school, this is a good book for you, but I wouldn't recommend it as a stand-alone resource for learning the alphabet on your own. This book isn't intended to be a stand-alone study guide for self-directed study.
Rating: 
Summary: VERY Easy to follow
Review: As a nonspeaker learning Arabic for the first time, I found this book VERY easy to follow. This includes 3 CDs to listen to sounds and vocab words. Alif Baa is the first book in a 4 book series, followed by Al-Kitaab Part I, Part II, and Part III. I am taking an Arabic course for the ARMY and this is the book we started off with. There are 10 units all together, with about 5 letters in each unit to learn, along with a cultural video at the end of each unit. In each unit there is space to practice writing your new letters and words containing letters that you already have learned, thus building your vocabulary at the same time. I would have to guess that this book should take the average person approximately 1 month to complete (Completing lessons each day of about 1 hour each day). By the end of the last unit, you will be reading real commercial advertisements and practicing word searches.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book for Directed Study Course
Review: I just want to let anyone interested in this book to know that the exercises really are not useful unless you have an answer key so this book as nice as it is with the CD audio component is not useful without an answer key. The answer key can be found at the Georgetown University publications website for only $3 plus shipping, but even better the book with CD and answer key are sold as a package on this site. For anyone interested in buying this book I would direct them in the direction of the Georgetown University publications website for no other reason than the answer key is sold as part of the package with the book.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Multi-Media Introduction to Arabic
Review: I used this book, as well as the accompanying audio cassettes, video cassette, and answer key, with a group of about ten beginning students. I've never seen such a lucid presentation, appealing to various learning styles. The text is a workbook, with exercises in reading, writing, discrete sound identification, and dictation. Though it is not designed to teach much vocabulary, grammar, or conversation (the focus is on phonology and orthography), the dialogs on the video cassette are all transcribed (in Arabic, of course!) in the appendix. And even though I've been studying Arabic for a decade, this book helped fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I've been studying Arabic for about a year now (with a couple months' break in the middle) and have been through several other books that introduce the Arabic alphabet. Based on the recommendations of several other reviewers, I ordered the book and the answer key from Georgetown Press. I got the newest version, which is in DVD format. I am very impressed. In the Introduction section, not only do they pronounce all the sounds of the letters, they have a video image of someone pronouncing them. This is really helpful, as not only do you hear the difference, you can also see how the shape of the mouth and position of the tongue changes for the different sounds.
I'm already pretty comfortable with the alphabet, having used Mace's book as well as some other sources, but I've already learned several new things working through the first chapter of this book. They also have video footage of someone writing the letters, so you can see how they are formed.
While I will eventually have to go to school somewhere or do a study abroad to get more experience speaking Arabic in real-life settings, I find Alif Baa a great start for self-directed study. I strongly urge people to buy the DVD edition of this book and the answer key as well--from Georgetown press if not available here.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the best introduction to the Arabic alphabet.....
Review: Out of all the teaching aids I purchased in the past year, I found that Alif Baa is the best and most comprehensive introduction to the Arabic alphabet and its pronunciation. It does not set out to overwhelm the reader with vocabulary, grammar, & script all at once. It does not set out to have you "speaking Arabic in a few days." The book's focus is on each letter, how it sounds, and how it's written. The reader goes on to recognize simple words and how to distinguish between pairs of words that are only slightly different when written but have entirely different meanings. This is an invaluable foundation that helped me to avoid confusion as I pursued other teaching aids to increase my vocabulary. These exercises are designed to teach you to first read, not understand the meaning of, Arabic words. I completed this book twice, then pursued other vocabulary books/tapes and sailed through them with this foundation. This is a "must have" for anyone who is serious about learning Arabic. Get it!
Rating:
Summary: Great resource, but there is a catch....
Review: This is probally the best book to start learning the arabic alphabet. For one it comes with 3 CD's that will let you hear how the letters sound. And there is plenty of exercises and drills to help you.But like another reviewer said you don't get an answer key with it. And there are some parts in the book that direct you to the DVD/VHS. Not that you really need the DVD, its nice to have. But you really need the answer key if you are going to do anything. You can get the answer key and DVD from Georgetown Press. I got the whole set from there.
Rating:
Summary: Great resource, but there is a catch....
Review: This is probally the best book to start learning the arabic alphabet. For one it comes with 3 CD's that will let you hear how the letters sound. And there is plenty of exercises and drills to help you. But like another reviewer said you don't get an answer key with it. And there are some parts in the book that direct you to the DVD/VHS. Not that you really need the DVD, its nice to have. But you really need the answer key if you are going to do anything. You can get the answer key and DVD from Georgetown Press. I got the whole set from there.
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: this is simply an excellent book for learning how to write the arabic script. progressing through and doing every exercise may feel tedious, so feel free to skip some things if you are getting bogged down; but keep in mind that it takes time, and a lot of practice, to learn a foreign alphabet, and there is no way to get around the practice if you want to be able to write arabic. this book is a companion to the arabic book/course "al kitaab fii ta:allum al-:arabiyya", which is, in my opinion, an awful book, although some may be enamored of its experimental methods. in my opinion, skip "al kitaab" and instead try a book like "teach yourself arabic".
Rating: 
Summary: SAVE YOUR MONEY!
Review: This work has its strengths. First, it comes with 3 audio CDs; and in learning to pronounce correctly at least some of the Arabic letters that have no equivalent in our alphabet, audio demonstration is indispensable. (Written description will not do.) Second, no one can say that this work is not basic enough. It is about as basic as basic can be; and this will surely make it seem attractive to anyone intending self-instruction and having no prior education in Arabic. Why, then, am I not inclined to recommend this work enthusiastically? Put bluntly, ALIF BAA IS A POOR VALUE FOR ANYONE INTENDING TO UNDERTAKE A COMPLETE SELF-DIRECTED STUDY OF ARABIC. Unless you buy Alif Baa directly from the publisher, the book does NOT come with an answer-key. Purchasing the key separately will require you either to deal with used-book sellers or to deal directly with the publisher. The former course may require you to pay nearly half the price of Alif Baa just for the 12-page key. The latter course will involve either paying a small price for the key (plus shipping, I imagine) or else paying more than the price of Alif Baa in order to obtain the associated videotape, with which comes a free answer-key. That's right: part of each lesson in Alif Baa involves watching items on the video, which must be purchased separately. You could buy the cheap key and avoid the video and still learn the Arabic alphabet; but given how much you've already paid for Alif Baa, isn't it distressing to learn after you've already bought the book that you must then either pay a lot more or else restrict the use to which you put it? Moreover, you can buy THE ARABIC ALPHABET: HOW TO READ AND WRITE IT (by Awde and Samano) for about a quarter of the cost of Alif Baa. Its lower cost is due largely, no doubt, to its lack of any audio supplement. In spite of this notable deficiency, however, this less expensive book is quite instructive; and its deficiency will ultimately be remedied by the fact that you'll need to supplement whatever grammar / vocabulary text you eventually select with some audio material. With these, you can then hone your pronunciation-skills as you would have done by using Alif Baa. (And if you intend later to study Qur'aanic Arabic, then you'll find this little book superior to Alif Baa, since it treats two features of Qur'aanic notation that Alif Baa completely ignores -- namely the use of letter-fusions known as "ligatures," and the representation of long vowel sounds by joint use of short and long vowel symbols.) Therefore, if your plan is to teach yourself Arabic (i.e., to carry out a complete course of self-directed study), and you don't want to waste money, then don't get taken in by Alif Baa. There's a less expensive, but no less effective, way to go.
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