Mastering Arabic 1 with 2 Audio CDs, Third Edition Bilingual Edition

I have been a fan of Jane's and Mahmoud's books since I found them 3 yrs ago and us polyglots have a lot to thank them for in Arabic resources. Jane and Mahmoud really have a passion for non-Arab speakers learning the language and they have been good enough to put a lot of resources out there and REALLY update them vs. some of the stale books of old (i.e. Teach Yourself) who pretend to update and just put on a new cover. While I love Teach Yourself books, in some respects and I value the Arabic book they offer, it is not the best way for a beginner who wants to get and **stay** interested in Arabic. Its super tedious on grammar and a big snooze fest reading it. The newer edition is heaps better but still a bit bogged down. Mastering Arabic fills the void for serious beginning learners who want to learn the ins and outs of the language; reading and writing it, not just for "tourist season". If you want to learn Arabic for that, don't get this book.I am not new to Arabic but I love both Mastering 1 and 2 books. I have been using TY's Complete Arabic for just about 2 yrs and have learned very little because it is so grammar heavy and boring to get thru that I find myself just throwing it in my closet in frustration and boredom. I dread picking it up some times to the point that I just totally stopped learning Arabic last year period because I couldn't stand to look at another grammar intense chapter. It made my favorite language, unappealing and I grew to dislike trying to learn it. So I began looking for new resources and something that wouldn't be too easy or "touristy". Mastering Arabic is perfect for that; it slowly builds up your knowledge and lets your brain grasp concepts, structure, and some grammar without ramming it down your throat. An early reviewer posted that this book is not for self learners but he is totally incorrect. That is why Jane and Mahmoud created the series (and eventually, the now book publishing company they run together--Hippocrene/Palgrave books); for those people who do not have access to teachers or who want to learn basics on their own.This book teaches the alphabet and pronunciation at a slow pace (well, for some of us, a snail's pace! lol!)so that if you have no experience ever learning, you will be able to learn and retain at a comfortable speed. If you are past hellos, goodbyes and simple pleasantries, then it will annoy you to go thru it again but in between this, there are still some things to learn you may not know. Sometimes when you're past early beginner's stage, you think you "know" all that but you'd be surprised how much you still don't know. I learned a couple of things I had no idea about, in the first 2 units alone. There are over 200 exercises to do in the book; reading, writing, and listening and it is all good to do. Some people hate doing the exercise in language books and in some books they are useless but in this book, I would highly recommend you do most of them because they will catapult your learning and retention to a high degree, like you wouldn't believe. The exercises make your mind think and process the Arabic so you imbed it in your head, not just be a puppet or robot by memorizing dialog, vocabulary and studying like a zombie.I must say though, that the book is lacking in dialogs and conversations but I think that is intentional, because they want to reinforce the language by making you think of and write your own dialogs/sentences vs. repeating parroted phrases to memorize, thus making the language come alive and active. Which is why I think, as the authors say, doing the exercises is important; because while it may seem trivial and insignificant or a waste of time, you may discover, like me, that they really get the language into your head and thinking. Also, when you go on to the next book and study other Arabic materials, things--like grammar and sentence construction, seem to fall into place like pieces of a puzzle being solved. For example, looking at my TY Arabic book no longer seems so unapproachable(although, it is still BORING and grammar wordy but it makes more sense and a bit more palatable, instead of mind boggling; and the extra vocabulary and dialogs are a big plus!)Some reviewer complained that she was disappointed in the book because the word "Master" to her meant that your master it completely and learn it. Well, I couldn't help but think that she is insane because anyone who truly thinks that you can totally master or completely learn a language by reading a couple of books and listening to CD's is absolutely crazy. You learn basics from books/CD courses but you have to USE it in life to learn it and no one ever completely masters a foreign language, I don't care how much you study, read or memorize books, newspapers, etc. It will not happen.These books made Arabic learning fun for me again. They are not too heavy on grammar(something another reviewer was upset about),they are light, user-friendly and interesting. Even with all the exercises, it doesn't make you feel overwhelmed with material to learn; its very easy going and slow paced for very, very beginning learner or those who don't want to whip thru a book before landing in Egypt on vacation but fast enough for those who want to learn at a piece by piece basis. You can take as much time as you need to and still feel like you are learning something. These 2 books will take you from beginning to low intermediate, which is great because from most language courses that is all you need to go to the next level and learn the "meat" of a language and really start speaking to native speakers without feeling stupid and you begin to pick up things in the language faster; the initial hump is what is the hardest. After these books, you will feel more confident to tackle a bit more of the difficult stuff like basic grammar--which I definitely recommend Jane and Mahmoud's Arabic Basic Grammar book, for use after these books and excellent for people who flunked grammar in school, like me and hate wordy big grammar books like the 501 series. Its laid out simple and easy for just about every person to understand and actually "get" it.Bottom line is, its a great series, if you love Arabic and want to learn how to speak it, both books will get you well on your way to achieving your goal, IF you put in the work and follow the lessons and of course, don't be afraid, get out there, speak and let native speakers hear you and get confidence to continue!

This book is truly fantastic. I have gone through several Arabic texts during my studies, including the Al-kitab series, and this tops everything I have used. I got it primarily as a review to help me get back into the language after a long span of time with no study...anyone who has studied Arabic knows that although it is a beautiful language, the basics can be dry and painful to learn. This text is so fun and is paced perfectly. The chapters are short and wean the users into writing arabic script slowly, providing a much less painful process than the method I learned by in Alif-Ba where they throw all the letters at you in one meaningless clump. The best thing about this book is the pacing, each chapter is short, introduces you to a condensed and concise amount of information, and then uses exercises and indespensible audio to reinforce. Definitely get the practice book too, because it provides that repetition which is crucial to absorbing new information. Plus it is fun and adorable with little crossword puzzles and word searches. The bottom-line is this book is concise, organized, not at all overwhelming, and fun. I have already purchased the intermediate level so i can begin right away as soon as I finish this one. I would beg the author to make another exercise book for the intermediate level since there isn't one right now, but I realize that by the time they published it it would no longer be of use to me :/ Thanks so much for making a great introductory course, they can be hard to come by, particularly for Arabic!

This morning I just completed the final lesson. I thought a review could be useful to someone planning on learning Arabic from this book so here are my thoughts. I have organized my opinions into pros and cons for ease of reading.ProsRelatively simple to follow for those planning on self-studying: The pace of learning from lesson to lesson is appropriate and while there are certain areas that I wish the book had spent more time on (more exposure to the different verb types and more grammar lessons) these are my personal areas of improvement, and they don’t correlate to any lapse in explanation or content within the book.CDs and pictures: There are 2 CDs the come with the book which are extremely useful as you are learning to pronounce the language. They also help to develop your ability to understand the spoken language instead of just reading and writing, which was one of my goals. The pictures break up the text from becoming one grammar lesson after another and provide visual stimulation to those who learn well from visual aids.Varied and interesting lessons: Many of the lessons in this book are actually fun to complete. They cleverly mix memorization and grammar with recordings, comic strips, diary entries, etc. There was a lot of thought put into these lessons and it shows,Provides a solid foundation of beginning to early intermediate level of Arabic: The lessons are fast-paced but easy to follow. You may have to spend longer on one lesson than another to fully memorize and easily apply the information within, but after only 20 lessons you will be able to speak/read/write in present, future and past tense, count, tell time, possessives, negatives, and create plurals.ConsSpelling and grammatical errors: There were a few typos that I was able to find in the exercises as well as in the answers to exercises. This was confusing and frustrating at times because I incorrectly thought I had misunderstood something when in fact, after verifying with a native Arabic speaker, the book was incorrect. If you have someone who can verify these errors for you it may just be a minor inconvenience, but if you do not have access to such a resource, this could be very confusing,“Dictionary Work”: This is a certain type of exercise that is featured in several lessons that involves the use of a dictionary. The aim of this exercise is to help the student learn to use an Arabic dictionary and also learn the plural, conjugation of verbs, meaning of words, etc. by filling in a chart. Firstly, I do not own an Arabic dictionary and I don’t intend to purchase one because of the number of free dictionaries online that look up the word for me, Also, filling in a chart is a very dull and unexciting method of learning the very dull and unexciting subject that is grammar. There are a number of great lessons in this book that can easily replace all of these “dictionary work” ones, and I hope the authors do in future editions.Overall, I would recommend this book if you are a first-time Arabic learner. It is appropriate for self-study, but having an native Arabic speaker would be useful for clarification for some typos. The lessons are well-thought out and varied and the CDs and visual aids help keep things interesting. While, the book is fast-paced and covers a lot of different subjects in a short space of time (I finished this book in 3 months), just make sure to keep up with the lessons at your own pace as some areas will need to more self-study beyond the lessons in the book. No one language book can fit the needs of every individual, so additional study beyond the book is and will be necessary for me to feel 100% comfortable with all of the material that was covered in the book.